Something Supernatural This Way Comes
by Anagram RMX
Summary: The Manor has been a little off since Grams died, but when Phoebe returns, strange, magical things start happening, which wouldn't be a big deal if Dean and Sam hadn't been hiding the life of hunting from their cousins, and of course if they could control their new powers. Or: The first ten episodes of Charmed if Dean and Sam were Halliwells. **Updated to Include Episode Four**
1. Chapter 1

**INTRODUCTORY Author's Notes**: Certain scenes have been omitted to focus on the Halliwell-Winchesters and such, but have been more or less implied through conversations with Andy and Prue and on TV. I'm going to assume that anyone reading this has seen the pilot episode of Charmed. Brief recap if you haven't: Andy and Darrel are off trying to catch a man killing witches, who happens to be Jeremy. Also, sort of extreme liberties taken with the timing of each scene, because things seem really stretched to me.

Also, little warning: I haven't written much for Supernatural before, so my Dean and Sam need a little work. My Dean is going to be especially bad for the first five episodes, because he's the one that's freaking out about getting his powers the most, but please bear with me until I get it settled. Sam I think I have leveled for right now, but he's not going to have as many issues with the rage monster in his chest until Jess dies.

Additional Warning: It took me _months_ to write just the chapters I'm posting within the next few days. I have plans for the future chapters, but I can't promise I'll update any time soon. Good news: since its episode based, I don't ever leave off on a cliffhanger, or without the current plot being finished. But still, long time between updates.

Either way: Hope you enjoy this series. I know there are a million of them, but I'm going to try and be original in my approach. Please review if you like it or not. I need the criticism since I haven't posted in three years.

So: BEGIN!

(-:-)

There was rain pattering outside the old red house as Piper Halliwell skittered up the front steps in the rain. There was the rumble of thunder in the distance, and as she looked up the walk, she could see the silhouette of a young boy staring out the window nervously, but perking up as he saw her. Part of Piper sighed as she continued up, closing her umbrella as she reached the porch and the door swung open like she expected.

"There you are," her fifteen year old cousin, Sam, sighed at her as she shoved her way through the door, looking up as the lights flickered a little. "Dean left to get Phoebe. Have you told Prue-"

Thunder rumbled as a look flashed into his older cousin's eyes. He knew what that look meant, and it told him that they were all in trouble.

"Piper!" he blurted accusingly.

Piper hushed her voice as she hung up her umbrella and started to put down her bags. "Look, we still have time-"

"Yeah. Like an hour. No way she-"

"What are you two talking about in there?"

The two of them straightened up at hearing the voice, and immediately hushed. Piper put down her bags before sliding towards the next room.

"Prue?" She questioned, glancing nervously at Sam.

"In here, working on the chandelier."

Hearing the world chandelier made Piper wince a little before she looked back at Sam, who just continued to look at her pointedly.

"Sorry I'm late," Piper muttered, before starting into the main room with Sam behind her.

"What else is new?" questioned the woman standing on a ladder in the living room. Piper pursed her lips, trying to ignore her older sister's annoyed tone. Prue looked away from the light fixture she was working on, down at her sister and cousin. "You know, I'd have been here to meet the electrician myself, but you know I can't leave the museum until six. I haven't even changed."

Offhandedly, Sam interjected, "I could've let him in, you know." Prue's only response was to look at him and silently say _No Way._

Piper looked back up, drawing her sister's gaze again. "Sorry, I just didn't realize how long I was in Chinatown," she said. "Did Jeremy call?"

"No, but he had some roses and a package delivered," Prue responded, pointing towards the dining room table. As Piper started in that direction, Prue's face twisted a little in confusion. "What were you dong in Chinatown? I thought you had an interview in North Beach."

"I did, but I had to go to Yung Lee Market to get the ingredients for my audition recipe tomorrow," Piper said walking into the dining room, looking appreciatively at the flowers on the table as her sister and cousin followed her.

Sam made a face. "You mean that idiot didn't hire you today?"

Piper winced a little again, before looking at the youngest Halliwell as she unwrapped the package her boyfriend had sent her. "No. But this," she started, before pulling out the bottle, "just might get me the job."

While Sam only looked at the bottle curiously, Prue's face lit up. "Jeremy sent you Port?"

"It's the ultimate ingredient for my recipe," Piper said lightly, looking at the bottle.

"Nice boyfriend," Prue said.

Again, Sam made a face. He wasn't fond of his cousin's boyfriend, and certainly wasn't fond of how she was ogling at the flowers he had sent. He was more than happy when Piper's eye caught on the spirit board lying on the other side of the table and her face lit up.

"Oh my god. I don't believe it. Tell me that's not our old spirit board…"

The others smiled as she looked at it, and followed her as she rounded to the seat where the Ouija board sat. "Yeah," Sam said brightly. "Prue found it while she was looking for a circuit tester downstairs."

Piper smiled over at him before looking down to the board where an inscription was written clearly on the back. "To my three beautiful girls, may this give you the light to find the shadows. The power of three will set you free, love Mom…" she trailed off before looking back at the other two. "We never did figure out what this inscription meant…"

"Well, we should send it to Phoebe. That girl is so in the dark, maybe a little bit of light would help."

Piper and Sam both froze as the oldest Halliwell said her youngest sister's name with such malice. Sam winced a little, always having hated it when the family was fighting.

"You're always so hard on her," Piper said, looking at the table tensely as she set the board back down.

"Piper, the girl has no vision," Prue said flatly. "No sense of the future…"

"I really think she's coming around," Sam muttered, looking at the table too.

"Well, as long as she doesn't come around here I guess that's good news," Prue responded, before turning and going back to the chandelier.

Piper looked to her cousin as he looked away from the table, and silently communicated to her that they really needed to tell her already. Piper looked away again, and moved to put away her ingredients.

Sam sighed a little, and moved to follow Prue to see if he could help with the chandelier,

None of them, of course, noticed as they passed the pointer on the spirit board was slowly gliding across the triquetra in the middle of the board.

(-:-)

Life in the Halliwell household had always been a little complicated.

With five kids running around and only Grams in charge, a lot happened at the Manor. If Prue and Phoebe weren't fighting, Dean was getting in trouble at school. If Piper wasn't freaking out about going to school after something awful had happened, someone had played a trick on Sam that needed to be dealt with before the youngest boy got a persecution complex. Really, they all loved each other like siblings, but things had always been chaotic when their Grams was alive. Things had only gotten worse when she died.

It was really just bad circumstances that landed them there at all. The girls had been put in their grandmother's care when their mother, Patty, drowned in '79. Phoebe had barely been three at the time, and had never known her mother. She'd always been a bit of a wild child that drove her eldest sister crazy. Piper, the middle child, had been the designated peace keeper and Grams' little helper. Prue was eight at the time, and had been forced to help take care of her sisters, and later cousins. The fact that their father left them a few weeks later didn't help matters.

Four years later, Sam and Dean moved in as well when their mother, Mary, died in a fire. Sam had only been six months old, so the manor was the only home he'd ever known, with Grams and Prue being the closest thing he had to normal parents. Dean was four at the time, and had taken it upon himself to be everyone's protector after that. He insisted on taking care of Sam and his cousins, even though Prue was already a teenager. Their father, John, was around every now and again. He came home for some major holidays and the boys' birthdays, and had been taking Dean Hunting every summer since he had turned thirteen. Dean idolized him, but he still hadn't been around enough to have raised his boys like their grandmother had.

So, the fifteen years all of them had cohabited the manor, things were a little complicated.

The past six months had been even worse.

When their Grams had died, their odd little family unit was shaken up even more than it had been before. Phoebe left to live in New York mere hours after the funeral. Prue called off her engagement and Piper quit her job somewhere along the way. Dean had come home from rambling with his father to help with Sam, despite the fact that he was always itching to get back out.

And Piper knew it was only going to get worse when her younger sister returned tonight.

She let the drapes fall back into place and started back into the front room, trying to think of how to break the news to the eldest of the five cousins, and the only one that did not already know that Phoebe Halliwell was coming back to San Francisco.

"I don't get it," Prue grumbled, flipping various switches at the breaker box in the laundry room. "I've checked everything. There is no reason why the chandelier shouldn't be working."

Piper took a deep breath, scratching her head, trying to think of how to say this. "Um, you know how we were talking about Phoebe earlier, right?"

Prue knitted her brow, looking at her sister. "Yeah, why?" she grumbled, starting to move back towards the kitchen. Piper followed close behind. Sam walked into the room at the same time, going towards the fridge like any normal hungry teen. He raised an eyebrow at Prue as she walked past him, obviously in a bad mood, and then looked at Piper.

"Ah, well, you know, she's pretty good with a wrench, and you obviously have a lot to fix around here, maybe…maybe she could help out."

Sam's eyes bulged as he realized the topic of conversation, and immediately started to turn around. Tragically, his escape was blocked by Prue as she walked towards a drawer on the other side of the kitchen island.

The eldest Halliwell made a face. "And so is Dean, but unlike Phoebe, he has a job, and he doesn't live in New York. Speaking of which where is-"

"Not anymore."

Prue turned around when she heard this, and Piper looked at the fridge where Sam was trying to disappear after what he'd just blurted.

"What?" Prue asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sam looked up tentatively. "Ah…Phoebe doesn't live in New York anymore. Dean is picking her up from the bus station right now."

Piper looked up nervously, and smiled a little in fright, confirming what Sam had said. "She's moving back in with us," she confirmed.

"You have got to be kidding!" Prue blurted, immediately stomping away from the drawer and past both of the slightly frightened family members in the room. Piper looked over at Sam, making a face before starting to go after her sister, Sam shortly behind her.

"It isn't like I could tell her no!" Piper protested, trying to keep up with her. "It's her house too. Grams willed it to all of us."

"Yeah, months ago, and we haven't seen or spoken to her since!"

"Well, _you _haven't spoken to her," Piper sighed, making it obvious to her older sister that she was the only one putting a block on communication with Phoebe. In fact, Piper had called at least once a week since Phoebe had run off to the other side of the country. Dean and Sam hadn't called quite as much, but Sam missed having his cousin around. Dean always had something to rave about that he couldn't talk to the rest of them about, so Phoebe still wound up being his outlet. He in particular had always been close with Phoebe, which was understandably why he was the one out right now picking her up.

"No, I haven't," Prue responded loudly. "Look, maybe you've forgotten why I'm so mad at her!"

Piper sighed, and Sam stood behind her warily, not saying a word.

"Well of course not," Piper sighed, waving her arms in a flustered motion. "But she had nowhere else to go, she lost her job, she's in debt-"

"And this is news?!" shouted Prue. She took a breath before looking between the two sitting there. "How long have you all known about this anyway?"

Piper looked away. Sam shrugged, wincing a little. "A couple of days?"

Prue arched her brows, begging the question of whether he was telling the truth.

Sam looked at the ground. "Maybe week…"

Prue looked at Piper. "Maybe two," the woman responded, sounding guilty.

A glare was given to them both. "Thanks for sharing. When does she arrive?"

Just then, there was the sound of a slamming car door outside, and someone was laughing. Prue knitted her brow, and turned to the door just as a couple of shadows fell across the window, and Phoebe Halliwell stumbled through the doorway with her leather-clad, nineteen-year-old cousin Dean right behind her.

"Man Pheebs, it's good to have you back," the boy was laughing, completely unaware of what was going on in the house.

Prue's jaw tensed and Piper only looked more nervous.

Sam, though, immediately grinned, and ran towards where Phoebe and Dean had come in. "Phoebe!" he blurted, running up and hugging her.

The ex-New Yorker grinned, and dropped the duffle bag over her shoulder to wrap her arms right around the boy. "Sam! Oh, jeez, how many inches have you grown since I left?"

"Damn kid's been growing like a weed," Dean laughed, before looking up, and letting the smile fall from his face as Prue's icy gaze passed him.

Piper smiled as brightly as she could, stepping from around Prue to greet her little sister, and give her a hug as Sam let go. "Phoebe, welcome home," she said, looking back at Prue. "It's so good to see you, isn't it, Prue?"

"I'm speechless," responded the eldest sister. Phoebe caught her eye, and the bright smile on her face dimmed just a bit.

Within a few moments, silence had fallen upon the cousins, and Dean was looking between the estranged sisters warily. "Ah…Piper! I'm starving. Haven't eaten since lunch, you think maybe…"

Piper looked at him like he was nuts for a few moments before catching on. He wanted out of the conversation and quick. "Right!" she blurted, feeling the same issue. "Ah-let's see what's in the kitchen."

They hurried out of the room, Dean catching Sam by the shoulder, and quickly shutting the door behind them as they knew that Phoebe and Prue were about to have some kind of show down they did not want to see.

Piper sighed a little, looking over at her cousins as they glanced nervously at each other.

"You didn't tell her?" Dean asked as if it were all her fault.

"_I_ didn't tell her?!" Piper responded, her voice as quiet as it could be while she was defending herself. "Why was it my job?"

"Because you're actually her sister," Dean pointed out. "C'mon Piper…"

"Dean, it isn't Piper's fault," sighed Sam. "We all knew this was going to happen. You already moved all your stuff into the basement because we knew Phoebe was coming back."

Piper sighed, pressing her ear to the door, making a face when she heard Prue flatly say that she was still furious with her. Dean looked at her curiously. "What's going on in there?"

She cringed and looked back at him. "Not good, but they aren't yelling yet…" she muttered.

Sam crept over to join her, pressing his ear to the door too. Honestly, private conversations were not to be expected in the manor. He almost recoiled immediately though when he heard the name "Roger" and Piper's eyes widened.

Just the expressions on their faces made Dean's eyes widen. "What? What's going on?" he questioned, taking a few steps closer, only for Piper to push Sam back a few steps so she could burst through the door and intervene before Prue started screaming like the last time this had happened.

"Hey!" she said in false cheer. "You know, now that we're all together, why don't I make a fabulous reunion dinner?"

Sam froze in the doorway, Dean mere steps behind him. Prue just narrowed her eyes at Phoebe. The latter's expression just looked disappointed.

"I'm not hungry," Prue sighed before walking off.

Phoebe didn't look after her as she picked up her bag and walked towards the stairs. "I ate on the bus."

The middle sister pursed her lips sadly, and looked towards the boys as they looked after their cousins, and slowly crept into the room. They heard doors slam, and Dean grimaced.

"I guess we'll try the group hug later," he sighed. Piper just looked at him before walking back to the kitchen with the boys in tow.

(-:-)

Less than half an hour later, Phoebe strolled around her room unpacking as she stared at the TV. She had hoped that the reception she got would have been less frosty, but really she hadn't expected any more than what she got. Prue had been furious with her for months for 'trying to steal' her ex-fiancé. She hadn't of course, but Prue had always been happy to see the dark-side of her sister instead of the truth.

She turned to the news station she was watching as the reporter on channel 3 talked about a fatal stabbing that had occurred at an apartment complex downtown. Almost expectedly, there was a courtesy knock on the door before the three members of her family that actually had been happy to see her walked through. Dean was first, smiling at his cousin before Sam pushed back to go and hop onto the bed. Piper brought up the rear, carrying a tray of grilled cheese sandwiches and glasses of tea.

"Hey," greeted Dean with his usual big grin.

"Hey," responded Phoebe before looking at her sister with a thankful smile as she rolled onto the bed next to Sam. "Oh thank god, I am starving."

Dean plopped down on the side of the bed as Piper carefully set down the tray. "We know," she said, before she noticed Dean was making a face at the TV. She turned around to look, and smiled at the face on screen. "Hey. That's my boyfriend, Jeremy…What happened?"

Phoebe giggled a little, reaching over to the tray at the same time Sam did. "Some woman got whacked," she responded.

Piper crinkled her nose, but it was Dean that spoke around the sandwich in his mouth to say, "Whacked? You've been in New York too long…"

Phoebe sighed, looking at her nails. "I'm beginning to think I should've stayed…"

"Phoebe," Sam blurted, swallowing his sandwich quickly. "Don't say that. We're all happy to see you."

"But Prue isn't," Phoebe said, looking at him, then Dean and her sister. "Why didn't you tell her I was coming back?"

Piper looked at her pointedly. "Oh no. It was not our job. You should've been the one to do it and you know it."

Dean shrugged a little, managing to swallow his food before speaking this time. "'Sides, she would've changed the locks if she knew," he said with a smile.

The youngest of the sisters laughed a little. "Yeah, you guys are right," she responded, frowning a bit before looking back over. "It's just hard to talk to her, you know," she muttered. "I mean, she's always acted more like she's my mom than my sister…"

"That isn't her fault…" Piper muttered, though she didn't continue as Dean and Phoebe gave her looks that dared her to continue that sentence. _She practically had to give up her own childhood to help raise us_. She'd been there for all four of them growing up, and she really had been a mother figure for Sam, as she'd been the only one old enough for Grams to trust her to take care of him when he was a baby.

"We know," Dean said, laughing just a little in long suffering amusement.

"Hey, we were lucky she was so responsible," Piper said. "We had it easy. All we had to do was be there."

"Yeah, well, I don't need a mom anymore," sighed Phoebe. "I need a sister."

"Dude, legally, she is my mom," Sam pointed out, putting his thoughts across easily. Phoebe laughed a little, although it was a little sad for everyone to think about. It shouldn't have been Prue's job and they knew it. Sam had a dad rambling around the country right now that should have been taking care of him, but who wasn't, and when Grams died, it had defaulted to the sisters. Growing up, Prue had been Sam's replacement mom, and Dean had forced himself to man up and fill the gaps that their father left empty

Seconds after he said it, there was a knock at the door and they all turned in surprise to see Prue standing there with a quilt. "Hey," she said, holding up the blanket and setting it down hesitantly. "This was always the coldest room in the house."

Part of Phoebe wanted to smile ironically at the mothering nature Prue still displayed, but she was cordial when she said, "Thanks."

Prue looked awkwardly between her sisters and her cousins, feeling like she hadn't been invited to a party that everyone else got to go to before turning around and walking away, leaving the other four in a brief awkward silence.

(-:-)

After the awkward half dinner the four had shared upstairs, Piper, Dean and Phoebe retreated downstairs while Sam finished up some homework in his room, ever the serious student no matter how much Dean made fun of him. Phoebe had of course noticed the Ouija board in the dining room and decided to be nostalgic and play around with it a little. Piper had readily agreed, happy to spend time with her sister, and Dean hesitantly joined them. They all remembered having spent creepy nights with the board when they were tweens. Phoebe had even convinced them to try out the odd spell or 'ritual' every now and then. Piper had just laughed at the novelty of it all back then, but Dean had quit all together when he had finally gotten old enough to go on hunting trips with his dad.

They made small talk as the three of them moved the pointer across the board, talking about Dean's job as a mechanic, and what Phoebe had been doing in New York. Then the conversation turned to Piper and her boyfriend, who seemed to be doing all the right things.

"I'm glad to hear that you and Jeremy are still together," Phoebe said brightly, not surprised when she heard Dean make a blanching noise. Phoebe laughed a little at how much like a little brother he and Sam were. Neither of the boys liked Piper's boyfriend much, and were pretty vocal about it.

"Where did you meet him anyway?" Phoebe followed up.

Piper popped Dean in the arm before he could make a comment on that, but didn't look up from the pointer. "We met in the hospital cafeteria the day Grams was admitted," she explained. "He was covering a story, and I was bawling over a bagel. So he handed me a napkin."

Phoebe glanced at Dean as he rolled his eyes. "How romantic," she said dubiously.

"As a matter of fact it was," Piper said in defense of her boyfriend. "The napkin had his phone number on it."

Dean cringed again. "How is that romantic? That's preying upon emotionally fragile family members."

Phoebe giggled a little, and Piper looked back at the board as their hands moved over it. "Stop pushing the pointer," Piper sighed at her little sister.

"I'm not touching it…"

"You used to always push the pointer," Dean said, rolling his eyes a little, pointing at her with a forefinger as Piper took her hands from the board, grabbing the bowl of popcorn she'd made to walk towards the kitchen.

Phoebe looked at Dean and rolled her eyes a little before looking back to the board and calling after Piper. "Hey, I forgot your question," she hollered after Piper. Dean quirked an eyebrow, and watched Piper walk away for a few moments.

"I asked if Prue would have sex with someone other than herself this year."

At that, Dean made a face. Phoebe snickered.

"That's disgusting!" the boy called after her.

But Phoebe just looked back at the board pointedly. "Please say yes…"

Dean wrinkled his nose as he put his hand back on the pointer, just in time for it to glide forcefully towards the A on the board.

The two cousins at the table ripped their hands away from the pointer in shock.

Phoebe's eyes were wide as she started to breathe her sister's name. Then it moved to the T with neither of them touching it. "Piper!" Phoebe blurted, looking up at Dean, whose jaw had clenched, and who looked just a little terrified of what had just happened. "Get in here!"

Piper started back into the room, concerned when she saw the looks on the two of their faces. "What?"

Then there was Prue's voice. "What did you do now?"

Dean's eyes were still glued to the pointer, but Phoebe and Piper looked back at their older sister.

"Me? I didn't do anything…" Piper protested.

But Phoebe sputtered a little. "The pointer on the spirit board!" she exclaimed. "It moved on its own."

Piper and Prue looked at them dubiously, but this time, Dean looked up, and saw the looks on their faces as clearly as Phoebe.

"Guys-this is serious!" he said harshly.

"It spelled A-T," Phoebe insisted.

"Well did you push it?" asked Piper.

Phoebe looked exasperated at the question. "No!"

"You always used to push the pointer," Prue responded.

"Listen to her! She's telling the truth!" Dean blurted. "It just moved! Our fingers were barely touching the thing."

"Look." Phoebe said in her own defense, putting her hands back on the pointer, then looked at Dean hopefully, but the boy just kept staring. The pointer didn't move. Prue sighed.

"Really you two, aren't you a little too old for these jokes?"

Dean rounded on her furiously. Even he could admit that when they were kids, he and Phoebe had been pretty bad about playing tricks on the rest of the household, but Prue knew damn well that Dean did not make jokes about the supernatural (to the point where he'd yell at Phoebe if she tried). Moreover _he_ knew that this wasn't a laughing matter, something he did _not _want his cousins involved in. But, Prue and Piper were already walking away.

Suddenly, there was a scraping sound behind them, and Dean looked back to see that the pointer had jolted back and was now returning to its position at the letter T.

Phoebe yelped. "It did it again!"

Prue and Piper turned around, but it was Sam's voice that really startled everyone. "What did what now?"

Dean's eyes widened, and he looked back at his brother. "Sammy, go back upstairs."

Sam made a face at Dean. "What? Why?"

Prue sighed as she crossed back, pushing past Sam. "It's still on the letter T," she said, smirking condescendingly.

"I said go back up-"

"No. What's going on?!"

"I swear it moved," Phoebe breathed as Prue walked away, telling Sam to ignore them.

Piper looked back at her sister. "Seriously guys, stop," she said, just before Phoebe bounded back and the pointer skittered to the letter I. Sam looked away from Dean just in time to catch it too, and for his eyes to bulge at the sight.

"Dean!" he blurted, pointing.

Piper's jaw had dropped at the sight.

"You saw that right?" Phoebe said pleadingly to her sister as Dean turned back around moving in front of Piper and Sam like a human shield.

"I…I think so…" Piper muttered, moving closer to Dean's side too, a little shocked.

"We told you…" Dean growled before the pointer started moving again.

"Prue…Prue can you come in here a sec!" Piper blurted, getting shoved back a few feet as Sam struggled past the wall that was Dean, looking on in awe as the pointer got to the letter C.

"What is it now?" Prue sighed, walking back, her face straining with patience.

"I think it's trying to tell us something," Phoebe muttered, scrambling for an envelope that was somewhere on the table and a pen, and quietly writing the letters it had given them.

A-T-T-I-C

"Attic," she read, turning the envelope around just in time for a bolt of lightning behind her, illuminating the room for a second before the house suddenly went dark.

Sam's eyes went wide, and his hands shot out to find his brother in the dark. Prue looked around in confusion, and Piper was the first to speak.

"I'm getting out of here."

She started to skitter out of the room without another thought, and Prue and Dean immediately yelled after her. "Oh come on," Prue sighed.

"Piper!" Dean blurted. "Come back here."

"Nope. I have seen enough horror movies to know that saying will get us killed!" Piper shouted back at them.

"No, leaving the group is what will get you killed," Dean responded harshly, chasing after her and grabbing her wrist. "Piper, we've got to stay together. Trust me on this."

"Don't you think you're over reacting to this?" Prue asked in annoyance as she followed the two. Sam had grabbed her elbow and was following her closely, a little startled by the events starting to transpire. "We are perfectly safe here."

"No, we aren't," muttered Sam, knowing just like Dean did that this was _not_ a joking matter.

"Don't say that!" Piper blurted at Prue. "The person that says that is always the first to die."

"No the first person to leave the group is always the first to die," Dean repeated, turning Piper so she looked at him. "Come on, Piper."

"I'm not staying here!" Piper blurted.

Prue sighed. "It is pouring rain outside, there's a psycho on the loose and where do you think you'll go- Jeremy's? He's not even home!"

"So I'll…I'll wait in the cab until he gets home from work!" Piper blurted, shaking out of Dean's grip to grab a jacket.

"Oh, that'll be cheap."

"Prue," Piper growled, turning to look at her sister as intensely as she could, "I saw that pointer move!"

"No," Prue sighed. "What you saw was Phoebe and Dean's fingers pushing the pointer."

"Excuse me?" Dean blurted indignantly, his lips curling back in a snarl.

"Come on, Dean!" Prue blurted, wheeling to look at him now. "You were always playing pranks, and this has really gone far enough. You're freaking out Sam and Piper!" She looked back at her sister, and pulled Sam in front of her so she could look at them both. "There is nothing in that attic, you hear me? Phoebe and Dean are playing a joke on us."

"No they aren't!" Sam blurted. "Prue, we haven't been able to get that door open ever! Not when Grams was alive, not when she died. Dean's tried to pick that lock eighteen times since he got here! Hell, I tried to pick that lock! You called a handyman and he couldn't get it open!"

"Hey, watch your language," Prue said pointedly to her charge, before realizing that Piper had skittered off.

She was over by the phone, and trying to dial the number to Jeremy's phone only to find that it didn't do anything. "Great, now the phone doesn't work!" she blurted, as Prue made her way over to Piper in annoyance.

"The power's out!" Prue exclaimed, before sighing and looking around at the three of them. "Look, just go with me to the basement."

Piper audibly gulped. "What?" she asked, as if that was in no way what she should be worried about right now

"I need someone to hold the flashlight while I check out the main circuit box," Prue explained.

There was a moment of panic on Pipers face before she looked at Dean. "Dean will go with you!"

"The fuck I will," Dean growled. "I'm getting a gun and you're all holing up in the living room."

Prue looked at her cousin in exasperation before Piper blurted something else as a light appeared behind her.

"Phoebe will go with you to the basement!" Piper tried again, pointing. "Won't you Phoebe?"

"Nope," the youngest sister sighed, pointing her flashlight at them then up the stairs. "I'm going to the attic."

"Excuse me?!" Dean shouted at her. "Phoebe, do _not_ go up there!"

"Yeah, we already agreed," said Prue.

"I am not waiting for some handyman to check out the attic and I'm certainly not waiting till tomorrow," Phoebe said definitively. "I'm going now."

"Phoebe!" Dean blurted. "What sounds sane about going to the place a spirit board spelled out?!"

She just kept walking though, and shouted down at them, "I'm going!" before disappearing around the banister.

Dean swore again, before grabbing him and Sam's jackets. "Sam come with me," he growled before going towards the door, hell bent on getting to his car for the contents of the trunk. Sam skittered after him devotedly. Prue rolled her eyes at everyone's behavior and turned to head for the basement.

Piper made a face, and tugged at her hair before blurting, "Prue, wait!" and chasing after her. Dean was right, after all. Leaving the group was always a bad idea.

Phoebe on the other hand had already made it to the door to the attic. Moonlight was pouring down from the window at one end of the stairwell, and when Phoebe edged towards the old door, she felt the slightest bit of nostalgia. She could remember trying to get in here time and time again as a teenager. All of them had, and Grams had always smiled knowingly when they came back downstairs feeling dejected.

She brushed her fingers over the doorknob, giving it a try before gripping it and rattling it a little. The knob held tight, and the bolt lock didn't move. She sighed a little, turning back, about to go back downstairs to see if she could find any tools to help her, but before she actually got back to the steps, there was a creak behind her, and she turned to see that the door had opened.

She shone the flashlight into the room, wide eyed with surprise to see a fair amount of furniture scattered around, and immediately, she turned back, starting in cautiously. Lightning flashed outside of the window as she stepped in, looking around. It was full of clutter, really. Old chairs, a dresser. There was a chandelier hanging from the ceiling that looked like it hadn't been used in a while, and chairs were stacked on top of each other. An empty birdcage and an old bust also added to the clutter with a headboard and a dozen dusty old blankets to round it all out.

That was when Phoebe saw a light, and her flashlight redirected itself to see an old chest sitting by its lonesome in front of another window. She quietly stepped over to it, setting the flashlight down on a table nearby before opening the lid to find a dusty book sitting between several others.

The book on top was special, though, and as she reached in, she felt the apprehension that always came with something new, something exciting. It was heavy, and big enough that she had to hold it against her side as she closed the lid to the chest, and turned to use it as a seat. She quickly dusted it off, and looked curiously at the red symbol on the cover.

After glancing at it briefly, she opened the book, narrowed her eyes at the words on the first page.

"The Book of Shadows," she read aloud, thinking over it for a few seconds before flipping the page, and continuing to read. The words called to her from the page, and she felt her apprehension grow as she read incantation.

"_Here now the words of the witches,_

_The secrets we hid in the night._

_The oldest of Gods are invoked here._

_The great work of magic is sought._

_In this night, and in this hour,_

_I call upon the ancient Power._

_Bring your powers to this family._

_We want the power. Give us the power_!"

Nothing happened that she could see, but in her chest it felt like something was bubbling out of her heart, and she knew beyond reasoning that something was going on.

Something important was happening.

(-:-)

Dean cursed a little as he walked barefoot in the rain to where his baby was parked. The old Impala had been a gift from his dad a mere number of months ago, when Grams died. John had been nostalgic enough to come to the funeral, but after that he had taken off. He had asked Dean if he wanted to go with him on the road again, like he had been the past year, but Dean had known it would be a better idea to stay. The girls were going to have a hard time with the house, and they'd need help with Sammy. When he had told his father that, John had smiled, and clapped him on the shoulder proudly. He didn't say why, but that night he left the keys in Dean's room, with a note to take care of his brother.

What he hadn't let the girls know, though, was that in the trunk of the car were all of the items his dad thought were necessary to accomplish this task. Shotguns, rock salt, pistols, books of exorcisms and flasks of holy water filled a false bottom in the trunk. John Winchester hunted monsters, searching for the thing that killed his wife. Dean had been hunting every summer with his father he could since he was ten, so he damn sure knew how to use the tools he was given

Sam, who followed close behind, keeping his hood drawn close to him as he watched dean pop open his trunk, looked at him warily. Sam hadn't been on nearly as many hunts with their father, but he too knew exactly what everything was for, even if he didn't like them.

"Dean, what's going on?" he asked, keeping close to his brother.

"I don't know, Sammy, but I'm gonna find out," responded the older brother stiffly. He propped open the trunk before going for the flap that was supposed to cover a spare tire, but instead hid his arsenal. From the selection before him, he picked out a shotgun for him, and an iron rod for Sam, something inconspicuous that the girls wouldn't get onto him for. Then, after handing his brother a flask of holy water, he glanced down at him, looking him in the eye. "Please Sam, when we go back in there, stay with the girls. Don't freak them out if you ca-"

Sam sighed. "I know, Dean. I've been playing this game just as long as you have. Don't let them know these things are real and we can take care of the rest…"

Dean smiled, and ruffled the fifteen-year-old's dark hair, trying to take some comfort from it. He was the oldest boy, and he'd always taken his job protecting the others seriously, even extending to the supernatural being's he had hoped the girls would never encounter."Do you still have that prayer book in your room?"

Sam nodded.

"Good. Be careful, alright?"

Sam nodded again, and stepped back a little as Dean closed the trunk and they started back up the steps.

"Dean," Sam started hesitantly as they neared the house again. "What…what if something does happen to them? Could we tell them…?"

Dean made a face at his little brother. "We'll deal with that if it happens, Sammy," he muttered, before opening the door and starting up the stairs where they could hear Piper and Prue talking.

They were just far away enough from the living room that they didn't see the lights shining down from the chandelier, and couldn't even start to predict what was going on.

(-:-)

Prue groaned as they crawled up from the basement. "What is wrong with this house?!"

"It's old, Prue," Piper sighed. "We'll have an electrician come in the morning. What we need to worry about is what the hell is going on around here…"

Prue sighed as she headed for the stairs, not exactly eager to find out what Phoebe had gotten up to in the attic. "I already told you, Piper. Dean and Phoebe are playing a joke. I mean, great timing with the lightning cutting the power, but still, a joke."

"Neither of them were touching it," Piper said with conviction as she started up the stairs after Prue. "Really, think about it. Phoebe just got home. How could they have planned this in one night?"

"Dean picked her up from the station. They could have come up with it there…"

"Dean didn't know you found the spirit board," Piper protested. "Not to mention that he hates that thing. You know that. Remember that one time-"

"What time about what now?"

The girls spun around to see that Dean and Sam had gotten back inside relatively dry. Piper tugged Sam, who still looked nervous, to her side as Prue looked at Dean and glared when she saw the gun in his hand.

"Dean!" she blurted.

"What?"

"What the hell is with the gun?"

"I told you-"

"No. No-no. You are not having that in the house while I'm here!"

"How about no, Prue? I know you don't exactly believe what we saw down there, but it's real, and I want a gun. Now, if you wouldn't mind, we might wanna make sure Phoebe isn't going exorcist on us upstairs. Got it?"

The two elder siblings glared at each other, but Prue saw the logic in what he was saying, and sighed before heading up to the top flight where the attic was. Everyone was shocked when they saw the door ajar, and Phoebe sitting down at one end of the cluttered room reading a book. Sam clutched closer to Piper.

"What are you doing?" Dean growled, his brow creasing when he saw the triquetra on the cover.

Phoebe didn't hear the tone in his voice, though, and looked up, smiling excitedly. "Uh, reading an incantation," she said, her voice shaking a little from the rush she had gotten with finding the book. "It was in this book of shadows, I found it in that trunk..."

"Let me see that..." Prue growled, stamping forward and taking the book from her.

Dean still looked angry though, the words _'book of shadows'_ only pressing that the girls should not be involved in anything involving magic. "An Incantation?" he repeated. "What-"

"How did you get in here?" interrupted Sam, who was glancing around, seeming far more interested in the upstairs room he'd never gotten to see.

"The door just opened," Phoebe said, still smiling.

The eldest boy still wasn't letting his point go, though. "Phoebe, what kind of incantation? Huh?"

Phoebe turned to him, her eyebrows tilting confusedly, not entirely getting why he was this upset about it. It was cool. Why would he be freaking out? "It said something about there being three essentials of magic: timing feeling and the phases of the moon. If we were ever going to do this, now, midnight on a full moon, is the most powerful time..."

"This?" Piper chimed, not really getting it either. "Do what this?"

Phoebe's smile only widened. "Receive our powers..."

A lump made its way into Dean's throat. "What powers?" he choked out, only to be drowned out by Piper.

"_Our_ powers?"

She sounded exasperated. After everything had happened the past hour or so, she wanted nothing else weird to happen to her. "You included me in this?"

"No," Prue interrupted, sounding almost as upset as Dean was from the other side of the attic. "She included all of us. _Bring your powers to this family_. It's a book of witchcraft."

"Let me see-" Sam started, moving away from Piper for the first time, only for Dean to put his arm up and flatly declare that he wasn't going to touch it as thunder clapped outside.

"No." Dean's voice was rough, and obviously not in the mood to be ignored. "Witchcraft? You seriously just started reading out of the book like...Phoebe, what were you thinking?"

Phoebe raised her eyebrows defiantly, still not getting Dean's attitude about this. "What was I...Dean, you can't be serious! It's-"

"It's dangerous," Dean growled, grabbing the book from Prue before turning around and going to put the book in the chest. "Damn it, Phoebe. You shouldn't mess with this stuff..."

Phoebe opened her mouth to defend herself, but Prue decided right then to start with accusations. "Spirit boards, books of witchcraft. It figures all this freaky stuff started when you arrived..."

"Hey!" Phoebe blurted this time, upset that the day she got home both her big sister and her favorite cousin were mad at her. "I wasn't the one that found the spirit board!"

There was a grunt from over where Dean was closing the box lid on the book, grumbling, "No, you just started reading incantations without-"

"It doesn't matter," Piper chimed in, physically getting in between the other two and Phoebe, "because nothing happened, right Phoebe? When you read the incantation, nothing, happened."

"Well, my head spun around and I vomited split pea soup," Phoebe grumbled, only for Piper to shoot her a look that said Please Cooperate.

"Everything looks the same," Sam added.

Dean still didn't look impressed, though. "Because that makes so much difference when you deal with the occult..." he grumbled, before storming out the attic door and down towards the basement. Prue looked back at the three of them, her eyes saying not to mess with this anymore before she started out after him.

Piper looked at her little sister and cousin, and sighed a little. "It's fine," she said, trying to console them. "Nothing's changed, so everything's fine..." With that, she started to lead Sam to the door, muttering something about maybe being able to get something together for hot chocolate.

Phoebe though chewed on her tongue, annoyed with the situation and her family. Without half a thought she moved forwards and closed the door behind them before going back to the chest. Dean and Prue didn't want her messing with it anymore.

But she wasn't usually the one to listen to them anyway.

(-:-)

The dawn sprayed cool light over the Halliwell manor when it rose the next morning. Everyone in the house, having been thoroughly _done_ with excitement after Phoebe's finding the book, had all settled back into their normal pattern. Prue was already gone for work before the sun was up. Piper was dressing for her continued job search. Sam had prodded Dean awake, reminding him that he had to be at work, and that he needed to give Sam a ride to school.

Yet, as they all went about their business, Phoebe sat outside, sipping on a cup of coffee. This being her first day back, she didn't exactly have anywhere be, not to mention she was sleepy from having stayed up all night with the Book of Shadows.

The few pages she had read before being banned from reading it were nothing compared to what else was held in the book. Page after page of spells and mythical creatures; demons and potions. What had interested her the most, though, was the mythos of the book being passed down to the Charmed Ones.

She was pondering it, and how to bring it up with her family when this magic business turned out to be real, when a voice made her look up.

"You're up early."

Phoebe smiled. "Never went to sleep," she responded to Piper.

The gentlest of the sisters smiled, choosing to make a joke instead of continue the drama that had been flying around last night. "Don't tell me you put on a black conical hat and spent the night flying around on a broomstick," she teased.

"The only broom I've ever had was kept in a closet beside a mop," Phoebe said, shaking her head, but smiling good-naturedly.

"So what were you doing?" asked Piper, sliding to sit next to her younger sister.

"Reading," Phoebe said, putting the cup up to her lips, about to take another sip. "Are Dean or Prue around?"

"Prue went to work early. Dean is getting ready to take Sam to school," Piper said, her voice getting low now that the book had been brought up again. "You weren't reading aloud, were you?"

"No…" Phoebe sighed, trying to defend herself as Piper stood up, getting ready to go to her car. "But…according to the book of shadows, one of our ancestors was a witch named Melinda Warren."

"And we have a cousin who's a drunk, an aunt who's manic, and a father who's invisible," Piper said before standing up and starting for her Jeep. "Phoebe, you need to drop this. Dean will skin you if you bring it up again."

"Dean needs to get over himself…"

"I heard that."

Both sisters spun from where they were standing, not having heard the door open as the boys headed for the Impala. Dean looked annoyed that Phoebe had obviously continued meddling, but he still seemed tired enough to not let it get to his words just yet. Sam on the other hand was looking at Phoebe sympathetically, wishing he had something helpful to say as he walked to the car.

"You do. Just because you're convinced there's evil about-"

"That's because there is Pheebs," Dean sighed, opening the door to his baby and sliding into the seat. "Seriously. Let it go before something bad happens."

"If nothing else, at least he'll stop whining about it," Sam added, earning an indignant _hey_ from his brother, and a giggle from his cousins. "See you after school."

Dean waved at the two of them briefly, closing the door and starting up the Impala.

As they backed out of the driveway, though, Phoebe looked at Piper and continued. "I'm serious, though," she said. "She practiced three powers: moving objects with her mind, seeing the future, and being able to stop time, and she said that they would one day be passed on to her descendants. Before she was burned at the stake, she vowed that each generation of Warren Witches would become stronger and stronger, culminating in a generation of the most powerful witches the world has ever known. They're good witches, protecting people and everything, and…I think we're them."

Piper looked at her sister for a second, the look on her face still dubious. "Look, Phoebe," she started. "I know what happened last night was weird and unexplainable, but we are not witches and we don't have special powers. Besides, Grams wasn't a witch, and as far as we know, neither was mom." She dropped a kiss on her sister's cheek before sliding into the Jeep and turning it on.

Phoebe just kept smiling. "We're the protectors of the innocent," she chimed. Piper waved at her, half smiling as she drove away.

"We're known as the Charmed Ones."

(-:-)

Before Grams had died, Prue had been engaged. The other Halliwells didn't like the guy, since he treated Dean like a second class citizen, made fun of Piper's shyness, and basically ignored Sam. Phoebe was the only one of them who wouldn't put up with it for Prue's sake, but when she confronted him about it, he told Prue that Phoebe had attempted to seduce him, causing a major blow up between the sisters.

He was obviously a skeeve, but for several months, Prue was convinced that she was in love, and that her co-worker Roger was the perfect guy: smart, financially stable, and he said he wanted a family.

Less than a week after Grams died, and Prue became the head of the Halliwell family, she found out that last part was a lie.

There were a lot of reasons for the break up. Roger's know-it-all attitude grated on her, and the condescending tone he used on her sister and cousins made her skin crawl. When she mentioned that she was moving back into the manor, the Halliwell family home for four generations, Roger had told her she was being ridiculous.

The last straw came when she decided to adopt Sam, though. With Grams gone, and Sam's father always rambling out on the road, there had been a brief scare with Social Services attempting to take him away. Prue immediately decided that she wanted her family to stay together, and as the eldest would take Sam in. Roger had flat told her she was crazy. He didn't understand the situation with John, and Prue didn't want to force Piper to adopt her cousin. When Prue mentioned Sam moving in with her and Roger when they got their own place, he had flat out refused.

Even months later, their relationship still bore the rough tone of a bad break-up. Prue tried to be friendly, but Roger hid his malice by ignoring her as much as possible, and being condescending and overly professional when he _had_ to talk to her.

Prue tried not to grind her teeth as she walked along side her ex-fiancé and current co-worker. Roger was going on about something or another, and she was barely able to keep listening. They'd been discussing the various new or pending acquisitions for almost an hour now, and he grew only more annoying as they went. She only really started paying attention when they reached the future sight of the Beals exhibition, a project Prue had been working tirelessly on for months.

"There's been a change of plans."

Prue looked over at him. "Change of plans?" she echoed, begging for specifics. "Regarding the Beals Exhibition?"

Roger nodded. "The extra money that you helped raise through private donations has sparked significant corporate interest. The Beals artifacts will now become part of our permanent collection."

The good news made her face brighten. "Well that's terrific," she started, before realizing the tone in his voice more or less said there was something else coming, so she wasn't surprised when he cut her off.

"...Which is why the board wants someone a little more…qualified to handle the collection from now on."

Prue didn't even have to see her face to know it was starting to darken, not even able to put into words how _low_ it was of whoever was taking her exhibit away from her.

"You look surprised."

"I don't know why," Prue growled back, turning full towards him. "I'm furious. Not only have I been on this project since its inception, but I'm the curator who secured the entire exhibition." Yet Roger's face didn't seem at all sympathetic, and the gears clicked in her head. Yeah, _he_ would be the one to go that low. "You're the person a little more qualified, aren't you?"

Roger only looked at her, striving for the rewarded passerby, but she knew better. "Well, I could hardly say not to the entire board of directors, could I? But I know you'll be happy for me. After all, what's good for me is definitely good for you. Right, Ms. Halliwell?"

Prue took a moment, taking in her name when he said it now, instead of how he'd said _Prue_ only two months ago. "Ms. Halliwell?" she questioned, tone still dark. "Since when did we stop being on a first name basis? When we stopped sleeping together, or when I returned your engagement ring, Roger?"

Roger paused, sputtering for a second as he came up with the words. "I didn't realize the two were mutually exclusive," he replied, barbs on each word. "Although, I certainly enjoyed one more than the other."

"Bastard," she growled before turning around furiously, wanting to go directly to her office to scream, but she was stopped.

"Prue, wait…"

Trying to remain professional, she stopped, and turned slightly, still looking at him icily as he looked for a few more words.

"I feel I should say something," he continued. "If only to avoid a lawsuit."

With that, she saw red, and as she snarled she felt just a little bit of pressure in the tips of her fingers as she dug them into the meat of her palms. As she turned around to furiously stomp to her office, she didn't even notice a blue stain spreading across Roger's shirt.

She also didn't notice that when he pulled the pen out of his pocket to see if it had broken, it sprayed him in the face.

(-:-)

Phoebe looked ahead serenely as she followed the road on her bike. Still warding off drowsiness from the lack of sleep the past night, she had finally put the book and the coffee down and hopped on the bike she had brought from New York.

Before she got too comfortable riding over familiar streets, there was a sudden rush through her head. The image of kids on roller skates passed in a blur behind her eyelids, while their laughter running through her ears. Then, just as suddenly as the first had come, and before she could process it, she saw a second image of an SUV driving into an intersection as the skaters rolled in front of it. Honks and yelling overwhelmed her, and she gripped the handle bars tight.

And then they were gone.

Her eyes snapped open, and she breathed heavily, not considering how the hell she had stayed in control of the bike as a much more urgent and excited part wondered what she had just seen. A mental spasm? A really realistic daydream? Or had she just seen the future?

She looked up again as the laughter from the vision traveled through the air. Her eyes found the source and she was only a little surprised when she realized it was the same as the images she had just seen.

Her eyes widened as it dawned on her that the SUV must be near, and sure enough, she saw it coming down a hill, and the boys were oblivious.

"No!" she shouted at them, speeding up. "Wait!"

She got to the street just before the boys did, and did the only "reasonable" thing she could: she bailed off of her bike, falling to the ground hard and cutting the boys off.

She heard a car-horn honk, but she didn't see it, as when her head hit the asphalt, a second set of premonitions appeared in her head. This time, though, she saw a very familiar face laughing amidst a selection of cars, catching a tool that was thrown to him. The image changed, quickly, showing him underneath a car, a wrench in hand, and oil all over his shirt.

And then, it showed the car he was working on, legs still sticking out from underneath the car as a plume of flame blasted the hood off.

Then she found herself staring back at the sky. Both of the boys she'd saved were hovering over her to see if she was okay.

She could only make herself say one word, though. "Dean."

(-:-)

Prue tried to keep her face neutral as she started towards Roger's office. The night before had already put her in a poor mood for today, but now hearing about Roger taking her exhibit had only made it worse. She had to do something to fix it, and as she neared the door, she knew just what to do.

And of course, she heard him talking to someone over the phone as she walked towards the door.

"It was my idea to spark corporate interest from private donations," the man was blatantly lying as he tied his tie. "Besides, not only have I been with this project from its inception, but we both know who really secured the entire exhibit." He laughed as he started to turn in his chair, eyes widening when he saw her. "Prue."

Oh. That was _it_.

"I quit," she said flatly.

A look of panic appeared on Roger's face. "I'm going to have to call you back," he said quickly, before putting down the receiver. "Think about this Prue…"

She looked towards a window, already having been thinking about this for a while actually. "Lousy job, lousy pay," she looked at him in particular right now, "_Lousy_ boss. What's to think about?"

"You're future," Roger replied severely. "Because believe me, if you walk out with no notice, you can kiss any references…"

But Prue's eyes just narrowed. "Don't threaten me, Roger," she warned. No, she had been through enough of this with him.

Trying to save face, Roger switched to something more congenial, chuckling a little. "You know me," he said. "Had to try. Look, you're hurt, you're angry, your pride is wounded. I understand all that. That's why you can't see that I'm doing you a favor."

"Excuse me?"

"I had to take the exhibit away from you," Roger insisted. "If I hadn't, the board would've come in and…and put a total stranger in my place. Think about it Prue. I'm here for you. Not some stranger. You should be thanking me, not leaving me."

The look on Prue's face clearly said that the words spewing from his mouth were bullshit."Well," she said after a beat, laughing just slightly. "I'm not worried. I'm certain your intellect will make quick work of the seventy-five computer disks and the _thousands_ of pages of research I left in my office."

Roger's face contorted, a little terrified of that prospect. "You're gonna regret this," he choked.

She just smirked. "Oh, I don't think so," she said. "I thought breaking up with you was the best thing I'd ever done, but _this_ definitely tops that. Good bye Roger…"

She started to turn while Roger floundered, trying to get the last word in, but all he could come up with was, "I hope there are no office supplies in your purse!"

Prue's face twisted angrily. The sheer _nerve!_ She paused just a second outside of his office, twisting her hand in a fist before continuing on, not looking back to hear Roger choking on something, and sputtering as things clamored across the floor.

She was done with him. Nothing more to say.

Yet the fire within her still died just a little when her cell phone started ringing, and she answered to get a call from the hospital.

(-:-)

Dean grunted a little as he twisted a stubborn bolt back into place on the undercarriage of the sedan he was changing the oil in. He could hear the grinding of tools and the laughing of his coworkers out in the rest of the shop, and part of him felt content to be there.

No one in his family had been exceptionally surprised that the majority of work he did was in car maintenance. Since he was a kid, he had been good with machines. John had him help on the Impala almost every time he stopped through town when he was younger, and once upon a time he had even considered going to school for an Engineering degree. Being a terrible student and knowing that he was going to end up a hunter had curbed that dream early on, but it was good for temporary work. He enjoyed it, he was good at it, and he'd be on the road again soon anyway, so why not?

He rolled his way back out from under the car and took a breath of the musty air of the garage before he heard his name called, and looked in the direction of two of the other guys in the shop, Jayme and Erick. "What?" he questioned, asking for a repeat of whatever he had been asked.

Jayme laughed. "C'mon, haven't you heard Erick's phone ringing every thirty seconds? Whipped, yes or no?"

Dean raised his eyebrows, grinning a little. Erick's wife was pregnant, he remembered. Having grown up in a house with four women, Dean knew well the effects hormones could have on peaceful living. "Has he been answering?" he jibed.

Erick rolled his eyes. "No," he sighed, bending back over the hood of the van he was working on. "Look, Carol is two weeks from her due date; she's freaking out a little about..."

"Everything," Dean finished, sounding amused as he leaned back against the car he was working on.

"You poor sucker," Jayme replied with false sympathy. "And think how much worse it'll be with the actual kid around! You're days away from being taken out of your prime!"

The married man rolled his eyes again before shutting the hood. "Shut up, Jayme," he said flatly before rolling underneath the van. Jayme just kept laughing, moving to a rack of oil and such on the other wall.

"Hey," Dean hollered at him. "Can you throw me that?"

Jayme looked to where he was pointing and pulled it off the shelf. He wordlessly tossed it towards Dean, letting it sail over the hood of Erick's van where he was working between them.

And then something happened.

When Dean's arms snapped out to catch the tool, a ripple of energy rolled through the muscles in his arm, bursting out at his hands just before the bottle landed in them. There was a loud bang that followed it, and the hood of the van Erick was under suddenly blew off of one of the hinges.

Both Dean and Jayme flinched, shielding themselves instinctively before flames started flourishing around one of the engine parts. Erick started yelling, scrambling to get out from under the machine.

Jayme ran for a fire extinguisher, as Dean came to his senses and ran to pull Erick out by the ankles.

"You okay?" he asked urgently, tugging him to his feet and out of the way as Jayme sprayed extinguisher foam over the engine. A part of his brain lingered on the energy that had run through his arms, knowing it was important. It had been funny, but his hunter instincts were telling him _that's_ what had caused this. But it couldn't have. Right?

Erick nodded fervently. "Wha-why?" he stammered, stunned at whatever had just happened.

"I don't know," Dean said, his muscles going tense from years' worth of training from his dad. "Was there anything at all in the-"

Erick shook his head. "N...No."

"C'mon, bro," Dean said, his voice overly calm. "There had to be something in there..."

Saying this, he swung his arm back at the van, and suddenly there was that energy again. Another bang sounded. Jayme yelped as another flame burst up, banging the hood off of its other hinge and hit a light fixture.

Suddenly, everyone in the shop was around them, yelling to know what was going on.

Dean had spun back though, and started to inch away, his eyes wide. One time: sure, coincidence. Twice: please. He knew better.

One thing was absolutely certain as the hood crashed back down to the floor nearby: something was very, very wrong.

(-:-)

Piper diligently scuttled around the kitchen as she continued to prepare her audition recipe. The pasta was done and on the plate, the base for the sauce was sitting in a pot on the stove, and all that was left to do was to measure out the port to put in. If she wasn't so busy concentrating, she'd certainly be smiling confidently, feeling like she had the job already.

But, of course, when you start feeling like that, things go wrong.

"You're time," a voice interrupted, shocking her out of her port measurements, "is up."

She turned, mouth agape as he reached for her recipe, looking over the card as she tried to indicate the port she hadn't added yet. "Let's see, uh, _roast pork with a gratin of Florence fennel and penne with a port giblet sauce_, huh?"

He reached for a fork, getting into the pasta, and she desperately tried to save herself.

"Uh, Chef Moore?"

"What?"

"Uh…the port…"

"Yes, without it, the sauce is nothing more than a salty marinara, a recipe from a woman's magazine…" he said, barely even thinking as he speared the pasta.

"But"

"Pfft-I don't have time for…"

Piper opened her mouth to talk again, but he just cut her off, holding the sauce covered pasta in front of her. "Ah-ah!"

"But-but," she desperately sputtered, not ready to hear dejection for something so silly as that she was rejected because she wasn't allowed to finish. She held up her hands, making one desperate gasping noise before it got into his mouth, and suddenly everything stopped.

For a few moments, she just stood there, wondering if Chef Moore had just decided to listen to her and actually stopped. But then he was staring at her, unblinking, completely unmoving.

"Chef Moore?" she asked, waving a hand in front of his face, moving around. He still didn't even blink. "Chef Moore? Hello? Hello?"

Before the shock at what was happening could get to her, though, an idea hit her. Still more focused on the job than supernatural mumbo jumbo, she turned and quickly brought some of the port into a basting syringe, and just managed to splurt some onto the pasta on Moore's fork before he unfroze and put it into his mouth.

The expression that crept onto his face consoled her fears about the job. "Mmmmm," he breathed. "That is very good. C'est magnifique, eh?"

She forced a smile onto her face, happily getting ready to accept her new job.

Yet already, behind the happy face, she was starting to freak out.

What had Phoebe done?

(-:-)

Prue walked through the doors to the nurse's station for what had to be the third of fourth time in two hours. It was past noon, and still, Phoebe wasn't out, even though Prue had been told it was very minor damage. "Hi, um, I'm looking for my sister, Phoebe Halliwell," she said.

The nurse didn't look up, still dealing with another patron. "One second, please," she said, before looking up at the tall man standing at the counter. "What's the name again?"

He looked up and he caught Prue's eye. "Inspector Andrew Trudeau, Homicide. Dr. Gordon's expecting me."

Prue blinked over at him as the nurse scuttled off. "Andy?" she questioned, a surprised tone to her voice.

Andy turned around to look at her, a smile popping onto his face. "Prue?" he asked, as Prue laughed a little. "I don't believe it. How are you?"

"I'm good," Prue replied, her day feeling just a bit better now that she was seeing him. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," Andy responded, a little stammer in his voice. "I just can't believe I'm running into you."

"Yeah, I'm, uh, picking up Phoebe," said Prue, looking at her feet for a moment. "She had some sort of an accident."

"Is she gonna be okay?" Andy asked, looking a bit concerned. He had lived next door to the family for years, so he was mildly attached to all of them.

"Oh, yeah, she'll be fine. Uh. What are you doing here?"

Andy's face seemed to fall a little. "Murder investigation." He said, looking a little annoyed that he was bringing up a morbid topic just as the nurse walked back up.

"Your sister's still in x-ray, so it'll be another fifteen minutes," the woman said to Prue before looking at Andy. "Dr. Gordon's office is to the left and down the hall. He's with a patient right now, but you're free to wait outside his office."

"Thank you," Andy and Prue both said to the woman one after the other, before they looked back to one another obviously not quite ready to leave the conversation.

"Well, it was good seeing you Prue," Andy said to her, reaching out to shake a hand as Prue laughed a little.

"Yeah, you too Andy, take care…" she muttered, shaking his hand, though she knew there was nothing between them that required hand shaking. Andy started to walk off, but after a moment, he turned around.

"Hey, you know," he started. "Phoebe's busy, and Dr. Gordon's busy. Can I buy you a bad cup of coffee while we wait?"

Prue couldn't fight the smile that returned to her face. "Sure," she started just as her phone started to ring again. She looked up at him, making a motion to say one second as she walked towards the sliding doors, opening up her phone.

"Hello, Miss Halliwell?"

"Yes?"

"This is the school nurses office. I'm calling about Sam…"

(-:-)

Phoebe swatted at the nurses as they tried handing her prescriptions or giving her instructions to take it easy. After the things she had seen only a few hours ago, the only thing currently on her mind was getting Dean on the line and getting him out of the shop before something bad happened.

When she finally got to a phone, the line at the shop picked up fairly quickly, and Dean's boss happily called him to the phone. He sounded tense when he started talking to her, and that was enough to make her worry just get that much worse.

"Oh thank god," Phoebe breathed. "You're okay. You're okay, right? Please tell me you're okay?"

"If you count startled and irritated as okay," Dean grumbled back.

"Why-what-you know never mind. Look, you need to get out of there, like now. Something really bad is about to happen."

"Now why would that be, Phoebe?" Dean asked, the tone of voice he used way to high to be sincere. "Because there's going to be an explosion?"

"Yes," Phoebe began, before pausing. "Wait. Ho-"

"It already happened, Pheebs," Dean sighed. "And guess what? I'm the one that caused it."

"Is everyone okay?"

"Yeah, but Erick came pretty close to having his head blown off. Now, would you like to tell me what the _hell_ you did last night that I can now blow things up by pointing at them?"

His voice was severe, and Phoebe winced a little. "Dean," she started. "It's okay. It's happening to me too."

Dean did not sound pleased. "Well that's great..."

"Dean I'm serious. I had a premonition earlier. I'm at the hospital-"

"Wait-what?" Now Dean just sounded worried, like the pseudo-older-brother he was. "Hospital? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I bailed off my bike to stop a car wreck from happening. Kind of hit my head, but I'm okay, I promise."

Dean grumbled something, his irritation partly replaced by his brotherly concern. "For the love of...Phoebe, if this is really happening, we are in serious trouble."

"I know, but we'll figure it out. Look, we just need to all get home so we can talk. Can you get off work?"

"Phoebe, who are you talking to?"

Phoebe had to laugh a little. "Good, I'll see you at home. Be safe."

"I'll try."

With that, the line shut down, and when Phoebe turned, she saw Prue, who looked even more agitated than Phoebe felt.

"Hey, are you alright?" she asked.

"I'm fine," Phoebe replied. "Can we go now?"

Prue raised an eyebrow. "Not immediately, what's the rush?"

"We have to get home," Phoebe said quickly. "I'll explain in the car."

Prue raised an eyebrow. "Okay, but we'll have to stop at the high school first. Sam's in the nurse's office."

(-:-)

Piper tapped her foot anxiously as she stood at the payphone outside of the restaurant. As predicted, she had gotten the job, but now she was really beginning to freak out about the freezing. Phoebe had said Melinda Warren could freeze time. This was really happening.

"Phoebe…" she growled at the dial tone. "Answer the phone-Answer the phone!" The tone just kept going, and she grunted in frustration before slamming it back down on the receiver. She started to turn, making mental plans to get home and scream at the younger woman, but then there was a presence in front of her, and she gasped to see the man looking at her. "Oh god, Jeremy, you scared me!" she exclaimed, knowing she was getting too worked up over this witch business.

He looked at her concernedly. "I-I can see," he said carefully. "I'm sorry. You okay?"

"Yeah," Piper said after a moment. "Now I am. I really am. Um. What are you doing here?"

"Well," Jeremy started, a grin coming to his face. "I wanted to be the first one to congratulate you on your new job."

A real smile finally cut through the nerves keeping Piper jumpy. "You're always surprising me," she said, laughing a bit. "How did you know?"

"You prepared your specialty," Jeremy said confidently. "And anyone who's ever sampled your work can truly see how talented you are."

Piper grinned. "I get so turned on when you talk about food," she said, putting her hands in his and pulling closer.

He wrapped his arms around her in a hug. "Hotdogs, hamburgers…Pizza."

(-:-)

Sam kept his eyes clenched shut as he laid on the daybed in the nurses office. His head was throbbing and really, it was starting to freak him out. He'd never been prone to getting headaches, much less migraines. Yet halfway down the hall to his third period class, something in his head started to twinge. By the time he was in his desk, there was a steady ache, and within a few minutes it hurt like a bitch. Worse, his teacher could see it on his face. He had been sent to the nurse, who immediately called Prue, who he knew should be there to get him soon.

He tried to drown out the pain by thinking about other things. He had a soccer game coming up. He had a test in seventh period. He still had Dean's shotgun under his bed. For the most part, it kept him from thinking about the pain, but by the time he heard Prue's voice, it still hadn't gone away.

"Sammy?" she asked, moving away from the sign out sheet.

Sam slowly sat up, wincing a little.

"Hey, you doing alright?" she asked.

The teenager wrinkled his nose. "Not great," he said roughly.

Prue frowned. "Alright, c'mon. We'll go by the pharmacy to get some painkillers, then go home."

She tugged him out of the nurse's office gently, and then out the front door to where Phoebe was waiting in the car.

"You okay, Sam?" she asked in concern as the younger boy slid into the back. Sam only grunted in response, and Phoebe winced in sympathy before looking back to Prue. "Can we go home now?"

Prue sighed, but Sam made a noise of approval for this idea.

"No, we're running by the pharmacy first. You've got that prescription from the hospital to fill and Sam needs Advil."

"But Dean-"

"Dean can wait another half an hour."

"What's going on with Dean?" Sam piped up.

Prue rolled her eyes. "Nothing is wrong with Dean. He and Phoebe are still on this prank from last night."

"Oh come on Prue!" sighed the younger sister. "You can't seriously think that!"

"Phoebe, really. It's time to stop, alright?" Prue sighed. "I'm tired of this and Sam doesn't need to hear it!"

"What's going on?" Sam asked again.

"Nothing," Prue answered flatly.

"Dean and me discovered the powers I told you guys about last night," Phoebe answered, her voice full of sour defiance for her sister.

"Phoebe!" Prue growled.

"It's true!" repeated the younger sister. "This morning, I had a premonition that two boys would get hit by a car, and I managed to stop it. I called Dean at the hospital and he told me he accidentally blew something up at the shop with his powers. Has nothing odd happened to you at all today?"

"Come on..." Prue sighed. "It was an accident and you both know it!" Prue sighed irritably.

"Prue-"

"Just quit talking!"

With that exclamation, the entire car went quiet. They pulled into the Pharmacy parking lot a few moments later, and Prue got out expecting to go in alone. Of course, Phoebe followed her with a sharp look of determination in her eyes, leaving Sam to sigh, and press the heels of his hands into his eyes. He didn't need powers to predict the fight they were about to have in the store.

"Prue, listen to me," Phoebe blurted as she charged after her sister.

"No. This is ridiculous. You have taken this one way to far," Prue growled back as they stormed through the double doors of the pharmacy. "You haven't made anything but trouble since you got back! You've got Sam freaking out and the drama is really starting to get old."

"Drama?" Phoebe asked incredulously. "If you wanna talk about drama, how about we consider that you _never_ want to listen to a word I say because of-"

Prue rounded on her sister, stopping in the middle of one of the aisles. "I said stop!" she blurted, feeling a burst of anger bolt from her chest, and suddenly a dozen pill bottles flew from the shelf next to her. Prue's eyes went wide as she slowly looked from her sister to the pill bottles on the floor.

A look that said _"I told you so"_ slowly pulled onto Phoebe's face. "Whoa," she said flatly. "Looks like you got the 'move things with your mind' part of the equation."

Prue just stared at the pills for a second, then back up at Phoebe before spinning around to go find Aspirin.

"Your powers must work when you're angry," Phoebe reasoned as she followed her older sister.

"Don't be ridiculous. None of us have powers," Prue said, her voice stubborn, doing her best to ignore what had just happened.

"You saw that just like I did," responded her younger sister smartly.

"No. No. That was...that had to be..."

"Keep telling yourself that," Phoebe responded smugly. "Wow, and I didn't even say Roger's name...I wonder what would happen if..."

"Phoebe..." Prue growled in warning, looking back at her little sister, who smiled.

"I wonder what would happen," she continued. "If I started to talk about Dad."

With that, Prue's face darkened, and the shelves around them suddenly shook, sending all of the pill bottles to the floor at their feet.

Phoebe looked pointedly at them, and then back up at Prue, who had her jaw clenched, and her eyes narrowed.

"What did you do to us?"

(-:-)

Sam gritted his teeth and pressed his head into his hands. The headache had only gotten worse since he had been sitting in the car, and it was all he could do to not start crying. It felt like his skull was starting to split down his forehead. He couldn't think, and his breathing had started to get rushed and uneven. Part of him was terrified something was _really_ wrong, and he could only hope that when Prue and Phoebe finally got back into the car, the pain killers would help.

But suddenly, there was a flash of images that surged through his brain. A black boy was running laps on a track wearing ROTC issue gym clothes. A brunette girl was giggling with her friends. Another boy was smoking what looked like pot in an alley way. One image came after another so fast that he couldn't focus on any one of them, only recognizing that they were his age before suddenly it all stopped, and the last thing he saw before the ache in his head stopped was a pair of narrow yellow eyes.

Slowly, he looked up, his headache gone, but his eyes wide. What had just happened to him?

Before he could even start to wonder if this 'magic' situation had started this all, the driver-side door to the front seat swung open violently. "I can't believe you Phoebe!" he heard Prue basically shout as she slid into her seat.

Phoebe slid into hers as well, quite a bit more calmly and smugly. "Me?" she laughed.

"Yes, you turned me into a witch!"

(-:-)

Piper looked out the front window of the cab, still mulling over the events of the past twenty-four hours as she and Jeremy rode to his place. After picking her up, he'd taken her out for an early dinner, but she still hadn't been able to shake the weirdness that had been happening.

"Has anything weird or unexplainable ever happened to you?" she asked, looking over at her boyfriend. She didn't want to make him think she was crazy, but she had to ask.

Jeremy shrugged. "Sure, it's called luck or fate. Some call it miracles," he said, before a small frown came to his face. "Why? What happened?"

Piper just shook her head, waving her hand in his direction. "Forget it, even if I could tell you, you'd swear I was crazy…" she muttered, pulling open the take away box. "Open your fortune cookie."

He shook his head, taking it and breaking the cookie in half. "Okay…" he muttered, before looking at the paper that had been trapped inside. "Soon you will be on top."

"It does not say that," Piper said dubiously.

He looked up at her. "Yes it does," he said.

"Let me see." She reached out to take the paper, while Jeremy joked.

"Is that a bad thing?"

Piper rolled her eyes a little. "Of the world," she corrected. "Soon you will be on top of the world."

Jeremy laughed as she threw the fortune at him, but then looked ahead to correct the driver on where they were going. "Oh, can you make a left on Seventh?"

"Seventh?" Piper asked, sounding a little concerned. "I thought we were going to your place."

"We are," Jeremy affirmed. "But you reminded me of something. I want to show you the old Boeing Building. The view of the Bay Bridge, it's amazing."

Piper could only blink, not knowing just what she was getting into.

Dean paced the floor nervously as the grandfather clock in the next room tick-tick-ticked away overly loudly. He had been home for almost an hour now, and there was still no sign of Phoebe or Prue. He had gotten out of work without too much incident, but with everything that had happened since Phoebe had gotten home, he was getting jumpy.

Powers. Magic. Phoebe had done something and it was starting to dawn on him that this was the kind of thing his dad hunted for. Hell, this was the kind of thing _he_ had hunted.

He had seen witches before and honestly, he didn't like them. Animal sacrifices, dark magic, usually idiots who didn't know they were selling their souls away without a second thought. They were messy and usually only wound up hurting people.

He had tried to keep his mind off of it as it dawned on him, but there was really nothing he could do in the meantime. He wasn't going to clean his guns while he was practically a weapon himself, and he was not going to go snoop around the attic now that he knew what was up there."

So, that had left pacing the floor in the front room, which only seemed to be making his stir-crazy worse.

"C'mon, Phoebe," he grumbled to himself, before there was a scrambling noise in the next room, followed shortly by the sound of breaking glass.

Already on edge, Dean dashed towards the Solarium, where he put his arms up defensively and suddenly blew out a window.

There was a tiny groan that came from his throat as Dean blinked rapidly. Piper and Prue would not be happy about that. He then saw a movement in the corner of his eye, and he carefully looked towards it, only to see a Siamese cat next to a houseplant that had been knocked to the floor.

He glared at the animal.

And then, he heard the door swing open, and someone yelled. "Dean? Dean? Are you okay?!"

"Yeah," Dean hollered back, agitation still in his voice as he slowly and carefully wandered back towards the front room. "But it would be wonderful to know who the hell let a cat into the house. Not to mention, what the _HELL_ is going on?!"

Phoebe looked affronted as he got to the front room. Prue was shuffling through the door, looking as upset as he was, and then he saw Sam, who seemed nervous, and who shouldn't have been there.

And then older-brother Dean re-emerged. "Sammy, you okay?"

The fifteen year old nodded, but Prue was the one that quickly told him about the migraine while Phoebe ran upstairs to get the book.

"He couldn't focus in his classes because of a migraine, so the nurse sent him home. We already got him some painkillers. He says he's feeling better."

"So it's got nothing to do with the freaky shit going on?"

Neither of the cousins noticed how Sam actually looked away at this, not saying a word.

"If it is, he hasn't said anything," Prue replied. "What tricks does Phoebe have you pulling?"

"Oh, just minor explosions," Dean grumbled.

Prue sighed. "Because my knocking things over with my mind wasn't enough."

"Telekinesis," Sam piped up as he shrugged his backpack off his shoulders. "It's called telekinesis."

"It doesn't matter what it's called because we're getting rid of it," Dean grumbled.

"No, we aren't."

Everyone turned, not surprised to see Phoebe looking ten kinds of defiant from where she was standing with the book on the stairs. "Guys, I don't know if you've considered this, but these powers are not a bad thing. We were born with them, and they're a part of us."

Dean looked dubious as she got back down to the ground floor and started into the dining room. "Phoebe, I've lived almost twenty years without them," he growled back. "They're dangerous, and I think I'm good to give them back."

Phoebe managed to keep herself from sneering as she set the book down. "Look," she started, flipping the book open to one of the early pages. "According to this, we're the latest descendants of the line of Warren witches. There are dozens of wood carvings in here showing witches battling different incarnations of evil."

"Evil-fighting-evil," Prue muttered, pulling out a chair. "That's a twist." Dean snorted; Phoebe just looked annoyed that they still weren't listening to her.

"Actually, a witch can be either good or evil. A good witch follows the Wiccan rede 'an it harm none, do what ye will.' Bad witches are called warlocks, who only have the goal to kill good witches and obtain their powers. They look like regular people, though, so they could be anybody."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Honestly, I don't care what they're called," he said. "I wanna know where these powers came from, and how to get rid of them."

Phoebe raised her eyebrows looking at him as if she just didn't get it. "Dean, we were born with them," she repeated. "Why are you so afraid of this?"

"Why aren't you?" Dean shot back.

Phoebe shrugged. "Everyone inherits something from their family."

Prue made a face. Sam kept his mouth shut as he moved next to Phoebe taking a closer look at the book as everyone else's focus was on arguing.

"Yes," Prue responded. "Antiques, money, a strong disposition. That is what _normal_ people inherit."

"Who wants to be normal when we can be special?"

At this, it was Dean's face that went dark. "Who wants to be normal?" he choked. "Phoebe, do you know what being involved in this means? We are going to be _hunted_ for having these powers. _Things_ are going to come after us, and so will witch hunters."

"Dean, we can't change what's happened," Phoebe said flatly. "We can't undo our destiny."

"Being a witch is not my destiny and it sure as _hell_ isn't yours," Dean growled viciously, making Phoebe's eyes narrow as she saw the protective-brother in him far more than the disgust she had always seen in his eyes for the occult. Dean had images flashing behind his eyes of all of the witches he had hunted with his dad over the years, all the terror they had caused, how twisted magic had made them. Moreover, he considered the fact that there was always someone giving them their power. Who was after Phoebe's soul, after all of their souls, for this? He'd be damned if he'd lose his family because of this.

Before anyone said anything else, there was a distracted chime of a voice from the book. "Someone should call Piper."

Everyone looked over to where Sam was still reading over one of the pages. He looked up when no one responded. "All of y'all are getting powers right? She probably is too. One of you call her and the rest of us will keep reading to see if we can figure out what's going on."

It wasn't lost on anyone that the most reasonable member of the family at the moment was also the youngest, so without a word, Dean walked off to find the house phone, and Phoebe ran upstairs to see if there were more books.

(-:-)

The old door creaked open ominously as Jeremy opened the entryway to the old warehouse. "Well, here we are," he said as Piper looked inside nervously.

"I don't care how amazing the view is, I'm not going in there," she said flatly before Jeremy reached back to grab her hand.

"Come on, come on," he insisted, pulling her in with him. "I have a surprise inside." He led her to the elevator, and closed the grating on it before hitting the button to start taking them up. "You are gonna love this," he said, stepping back beside her. "I bet you'll tell Phoebe and Prue the moment you see them."

Hearing that, Piper looked up at Jeremy in surprise. "I never mentioned Phoebe came home," she said, turning towards him.

Jeremy opened his mouth, like he was feeling like an idiot, but immediately rounded on her, pulling a knife from his pocket. "Ooops," he said.

Piper backed away, her voice going breathy with surprise and fear. "What is that?"

"It's your surprise," Jeremy responded with an insane grin.

"Jeremy, stop it. You're scaring me," she said, looking up at him, but he still just kept a grin on his face, holding out the knife. "Damn it, I'm serious!"

"So am I!" Jeremy now growled at her as she backed against the wall, and they started circling one another. "See, I've waited six month's for this. Ever since Grams went to the hospital. You see, I've known for quite some time that the moment the old witch croaked that all your powers, they'd be released-powers that would reveal themselves as soon as the three of you got together again. All that was needed was for Phoebe to return."

Gears started clicking together, and Piper gasped a little as she said, "It's you isn't it? You killed all those women."

"Not women," he replied lowly, stepping towards her. "Witches."

"Why?"

Jeremy put a hand up now, lighter sized flames erupting from each of his fingertips. "It was the only way to get their powers," he said as his voice went low and demonic. "And now I want yours!"

His face then twisted disgustingly, and Piper screamed. Jeremy lunged for her grabbing her sweater, and Piper put up her hands to protect herself, not entirely surprised when Jeremy froze.

She panted, the situation overwhelming her. She moved out from in front of him, pulling her sweater from his grasp and trying to figure a way out. "Okay…think. Stay calm," she told herself. "Think-think-think, you've gotta get out of here…" she muttered, only to look over to the grating and see that they had stopped. "Okay," she told herself. "Okay…" She walked over to the ledge and crawled onto the cement floor easily, only for a hand to grab her leg just as she got her footing.

Again she screamed, clambering for something to get a hold on, only finding wood pallets in front of her. She groped at them, as he pulled her back, managing to dislodge her just as she saw a board. She desperately grabbed at it before swinging back hard enough to knock him off and knock him out.

Without half a thought, she got up and ran.

(-:-)

The sun had long since set outside as four Halliwell cousins continued going through the book. Phoebe was going through one of the other books in the trunk, looking at a listing of Warren history (non-magic, but it had confirmed that Penny Halliwell (Grams) had been a descendent of Melinda Warren from the spell book). Prue and Sam were going through the Book of Shadows quietly, and Dean had been on the phone for quite a while.

Piper had never picked up, so he instead had tried to call his dad. If anyone would know why Gram's had the book, he was their only probable source of information. Although, if he had known Grams was a witch, Dean was not eager to learn that his father had know about this all along. Similarly, he had called a friend of the family's, Bobby Singer. The man was the most seasoned hunter Dean was willing to call for help. If anyone knew about good witches, it would be him. Though he hadn't picked up, he had left a message. Roger tried calling, but Dean didn't even listen to him for a few seconds before hanging up. Then he tried to call Piper again before heading back to the other room.

"No one is picking up," he sighed, pulling out a chair and putting down the phone. "But I left messages for Dad and Bobby to call back when they get a chance, and I told Roger to shove it when he called. What have you two found?"

Prue looked up, nodding, pleased at Dean's reaction to Roger. "What it looks like is that we _were_ born with the powers, but Grams bound them," she said, a small twinge of 'maybe this is really happening' in her voice. "Sam hasn't found the incantation yet, but there are references here and there about it."

"Okay, so we find it, use one last bit of magic and move on with life," Dean said.

"Except," Phoebe interrupted. "I'm not binding my powers. Come on, Dean. What is so wrong about this?"

Dean scoffed. "What's wrong with this?" he echoed. "Phoebe, you don't know what you've gotten us into. Do you know what witches do?"

"I know I saved two boys from getting hit by a car earlier," Phoebe defended.

"Well that's _great_," Dean growled. "I nearly blew Erick's head off. What is this going to cost us Phoebe? Are animal sacrifices next on the list?"

Phoebe looked stunned at the mere idea of sacrifices. Sam bit his lip, and tried to stop his brother. "Dean..."

"'Cause guess what: that is what witches do. They sacrifice animals. They use corpse parts and-and where the hell did the power come from in the first place?"

"Dean," Sam tried again.

"Whatever demon you called to-"

"Dean!"

This time, Sam actually practically shouted, but it managed to get his brother's attention. They all turned to him, looking a bit concerned, but Sam just kept looking at Dean. "None of these spells mention animal sacrifices, and the spell Phoebe read doesn't name a demon at all."

Prue's brow wrinkled at Sam's declaration, confused that he sounded so matter of fact about it. She and Sam had been perusing the book at the same time and she hadn't realized that Sam actually knew what he was looking for.

A look of disbelief went over Dean's face as he rounded the table.

"Lemme see," he said quickly. Sam flipped to the front, and after a few seconds, Dean added, "Well what's this _Ancient Power_ business?"

"Too ambiguous to be a single demon and _Oldest of Gods _could just be calling on nature," Sam answered. "Plus, what witches have we seen that use powers like you guys have been? What if there's a kind of witch that have their own inherent power? Like, no demon needed?"

Prue looked at Phoebe in confusion.

"Then they wouldn't be witches. They...they'd be a creature, or a demon or spirit or something."

"Are you saying we're creatures?"

"I'm saying that these powers are coming from somewhere."

"Ah, guys," Prue interrupted. "Why do you seem to know so much about what's going on?"

Dean ignored her.

"Look," Sam continued. "Whatever is going on, it's nothing that dad has showed us."

Phoebe was the one that spoke up at that. "Dad?" she blurted. "Is he the one who gave you this witches are evil idea?!"

Dean looked back up at this, his brows lowering, and about to snap at her, but Sam gave him a severe glance. "Can we tell them now?"

"Tell us what?" Prue asked in a dangerously low voice.

"Nothing," Dean replied. "And no, as soon as these 'powers' are gone, they don't need to be involved."

"Except," Phoebe growled. "We aren't getting rid of our powers. Dean-What are you keeping from us?"

For a few moments, Dean and Phoebe just kept glaring at each other, but Sam sought Prue's eyes.

"Me and Dean," he eventually started, "when we go hunting with our dad, we're hunting monsters."

Phoebe and Dean now looked to the youngest Halliwell, Phoebe's expression softening a little.

"Some of the things we've hunted are in the book, actually," he continued, moving back to the book, flipping through the pages. "Here: Wendigos. We got one of those two summers ago…and ghosts. We get them a _lot_, only you can get rid of them without a potion or a spell like it says. Demons too, though I haven't seen too many of those…"

There were a few seconds of quiet as Sam looked back up, before Dean coughed.

"We've also hunted witches."

"Evil witches," Sam interjected, though Dean paid him no mind.

"Usually you see it in stupid teenagers. Someone will find a book, and say a spell that promises their soul to a demon or to a pagan god," Dean explained. "For their soul, there are perks: powers, money, good things happening in your life, and the demon gets your soul when you die. They generally require animal sacrifices for it to work, and every now and again, they choose to take revenge on good people with their ill gotten powers."

"And you think that could be us?" Phoebe choked, appalled that her cousin could think she-they-could turn into monsters that needed to be hunted. "Dean-none of us want to hurt anyone."

"Not now, but damn it, these powers are _not_ good. People don't go into this wanting to hurt people, but eventually, they all do."

"This isn't like that!" Phoebe protested, standing up and shouting at him across the table. "This isn't evil, Dean. _We_ are not evil, Grams-"

"You don't know that!"

"And neither do you!" Phoebe shouted back before there was the rattling of a door knob. For a split second, Sam and Dean went tense, but then they heard a familiar voice.

"Prue?! Dean?!"

Phoebe's eyes went a little wide, and without a second thought everyone rushed into the entry way where they saw Piper walking in, shaking and obviously terrified of something.

"Oh my god, what's wrong?" Phoebe blurted, walking over and putting a hand on her shoulder, trying to console her though it obviously wasn't going to work.

"Quick," Piper said. "Lock the doors. Check the windows. Dean, please tell me you still have that gun…"

"What is it?" Dean blurted, his voice firm as his mind switched into hunting mode, ready to protect his family.

"It…it's Jeremy," Piper choked. "We don't have a lot of time. Phoebe, in the book of shadows, did it say how to get rid of a…a warlock?"

"Son of a bitch…" Dean growled before immediately running upstairs to find guns for him and Sam.

The younger brother though was already grasping at Phoebe's wrist. "There's nothing for a warlock, but there is one that might work," he said, starting to drag her away, the book under his free arm. "You lock down, we'll set it up."

"Forget that," Prue growled as the two of them bounded upstairs. "I'm calling the cops."

"And tell them what? That we're witches?" Piper asked desperately. "That some freak with powers beyond comprehension is trying to kill us? Even if the cops did come, they'd be no match for Jeremy, and we'd be next!"

"Well sorry if I'm not quite ready to trust this to some spell just yet," Prue growled, slamming the house phone back on the receiver, before Dean walked back down the stairs.

"Neither am I," he said, tucking a pistol in his belt before cocking the shotgun in his hands. "Which is why we have guns. But Piper is right; we need to keep the cops out of this. It'll only make everything more complicated."

Just then, they heard Phoebe yell down to them from the attic, that they all needed to get up there. After making sure the rest of the house was locked up, the three of them all walked up the stairs, and weren't entirely surprised to see Sam and Phoebe lighting a circle of candles. The book was sitting in the middle of a low table with what looked like a brass cauldron sitting in front of it.

"Alright," Phoebe started to explain, waving Piper and Prue over to sit down as Dean crossed the room to stand sentry at the window. "We've placed the nine candles anointed with oils and spices in a circle…"

"Wait," Piper interrupted, still a little on edge as she took a seat with her sisters and Sam. "I only count eight…"

"You forgot this one," Sam muttered, pursing his lips as he held up a pink birthday candle, lighting it quickly before dropping it in the pot. "I think Grams was low on witch supplies…"

"Of course she was…" Prue grumbled.

Phoebe looked back at the spell and its directions. "Okay, now we need the poppet," she said, before looking at Sam again, who held up a wax doll and handed it to Piper.

"What-what am I supposed to…" she stammered.

"That's going to represent Jeremy," Sam explained, also pulling up one of the roses he had had delivered the day before. "Press the flower and it's thorns into the doll and recite the spell on the page we have opened."

Piper swallowed hard, and looked down. She let out a breath, before doing as she was told. "You're love will wither and depart from my life and my heart. Let me be, Jeremy, and go away forever…" she pursed her lips, pressing the thorn as firmly as possible into the doll before dropping the poppet into the cauldron on the table. There was a moment where nothing happened, and they all held their breath as smoke started to billow from the pot, and there was a sudden plume of flame. Everyone gaped, and even Dean had to look over from where he was avoiding the entire process at the window.

Phoebe sighed a little looking around. "Okay, the spell's complete." She said.

"Let's hope it worked, though," Dean grumbled, crossing the room anyway to hand Sam the shotgun, and to taking the pistol back out for himself.

Everyone started to stand, hoping like hell that at least this one bit of craziness was over. Piper, still shaking, worked with Prue to clean up the candles, while Phoebe went for the cauldron. But the second she touched the rim of the bowl, she gasped.

Just like before, images flooded into her head of Jeremy, covered in thorns, but certainly still moving. "Wait!" she blurted stopping everyone in their tracks. "It didn't work!"

Piper's eyes went wide, and she kept shaking just as she had before. "What?" she gulped.

"The spell, it didn't work," Phoebe repeated.

"How do you know?" Sam asked, his eyes going just as wide, holding the shotgun in his hands just a bit tighter.

"When I touched the pot, I had a…a flash," Phoebe blurted. "I saw Jeremy. He's on his way here."

A trail of swears made its way out of Deans mouth as he ran back towards the stairs. He'd been skeptical, and he'd been right. Now the only thing he could think of was getting the girls and Sam out of there. He already had the keys to the Impala in his hands as he got to the door. "Come on."

They made quick work of the stairs, Dean taking the lead and turning back to the girls as he opened the door. But as he started to tell them to take the Impala, there was Jeremy, standing in thorn covered terror. Piper and Phoebe shrieked. Dean spun around dodged backwards.

"Hello Kids," Jeremy joked, stepping in.

Immediately, Prue put out her arms to shield Phoebe, Sam and Piper, while Dean held up the pistol. "You guys get out of here," he growled, firing off the first shot. It pegged Jeremy in the shoulder, but the warlock just laughed. "Now!"

Prue looked back at the others. "Go!" she blurted, and they ran. She didn't follow, though, instead talking to Dean. "And what the hell do you think you're going to do?" She flicked her wrist, pushing Jeremy into the wall.

"Try to kill him maybe?" Dean growled, trying to shoot him again, but Jeremy then laughed, and raised his hand. Suddenly there was a cyclone of air between them, flinging Dean back hard, and letting the pistol go flying.

"Not by yourself you don't!" Prue growled, as Jeremy tried to do the same to her, but getting a hold on her telekinesis, she managed to stay firmly in place.

"Cool parlor trick bitch," Jeremy laughed. Prue knocked him back into a table, and just kept laughing. Prue could hear Phoebe, Sam and Piper yelling that they had to do something, but Prue just wanted them to stay where they were. "You two always were the tough ones…" Jeremy growled, before summoning a quicker burst of wind.

Dean, who had hardly managed to get back on his feet was promptly knocked back over, and was thrown into the sitting room. Prue had to brace herself against the stairs, and as pictures started falling off of the wall in the gust, Sam and Phoebe rushed back down, with Piper following hesitantly behind.

Prue screamed at them, but it was only lost in Jeremy's cackling. Sam tried to fire off a shotgun blast from the stairs, but only succeeded in making a few dozen silver pits appear in Jeremy's skin. For it, he sent a blast that knocked him and Phoebe from the stairs, losing the second gun they had on hand. Piper ducked down, bracing herself as best she could, putting her arms up to stop falling pictures from raining down on her family. Prue caught Phoebe and Sam from falling to the ground hard with her powers.

"Someone do something!" Prue gasped.

"What can we do?!" Dean yelled back from where he was braced against a dividing wall.

"The Book of Shadows said something," Sam gasped, clinging to Phoebe where they had landed, "something about a power of three-"

"That would be helpful if we had the book!" Prue yelled.

Jeremy just continued cackling. "You think you can stop me?!" he shouted in a low, demonic voice. "Haven't you witches figured it out?! Nothing can keep me from getting your powers!"

The wind started shaking the stair railing that Piper was hanging onto, and she screamed. Her freeze on all of the furniture let go, and paintings began flying around.

"Sammy! Duck!" Phoebe yelled, making Sam cover his head as a picture from the wall flew at him, and he ducked his head before the glass shattered over him.

Jeremy raised his hand again. "And this is only the beginning of what I can do!" he shouted, motioning towards Prue. Jeremy's power ripped her away from where she was braced, and she flew across the room.

"Prue!" Dean shouted, untucking himself from the wall to try and catch her. He managed to get in her way, and he cushioned her fall, but as she knocked him down, his arms went flying, and a ripple of power flew towards the wall where there was suddenly a tiny explosion. Nothing caught fire, but as Dean sat up, Prue in his lap, he looked at his hands. The guns hadn't worked, but maybe…

He stood up, moving into the other room as Jeremy moved through the torrential winds he had caused and moved towards Sam and Phoebe. "And the two of you," he growled. "The two damned shall be first." Jeremy started to kneel, but then Dean just flicked out his arm.

Jeremy didn't even have a chance to look up at him before the flames began spreading from his gut, blowing him up from the inside out. The winds slowly came to a stop, dropping picture frames and old mail and Piper's umbrella. Sam slowly got up, a little cut on the side of his face where he'd been clipped by a piece of junk mail. Piper shakily got up from the stairs, looking around nervously, and staring at Prue as she walked in from the other room.

Dean looked at the spot where Jeremy had just been. This was what he did, he hunted. But this didn't feel anything like the victories he had taken with his dad. A gun, a banishing ritual, an exorcism hadn't taken this guy out, and for some reason, that felt different. It felt like they were opening a door to something far more dangerous.

Even so, the five of them looked back at one another, and immediately rushed in to huddle together, because the five of them were all safe, and for right now, that was all they cared about.

(-:-)

When the morning came around, there was little left to remind them of what had happened the night before. There were a few pictures missing from the walls, all the frames being shattered, but all the debris had been cleared and the spell work had been cleaned up in the attic. Nothing remained of Jeremy in the front hall. It almost felt like a normal Saturday.

But it wasn't.

The five Halliwells now bumbled around in the kitchen. Dean sitting at the table, moving extra slow as he ate his bacon to be sure he didn't blow anyone up. Prue was looking over the newspaper, wondering when or if Jeremy would be reported missing. Phoebe was reading one of the other magic books Grams had stashed in the trunk, trying to figure out why Dean didn't have telekinesis, time-stopping or premonition. And Piper was diligently continuing to make breakfast, trying not to look at the cat she had frozen when it had tried to jump on the counter. There was a burn scar on the wall, and none of them were about to forget that their lives were probably going to be like this for a while.

Sam was the only one that even seemed to be pretending everything was okay, but that might have been because he hadn't told anyone about the headache that had kept him awake for half the night.

"Why is there a cat in the house anyway?" Piper sighed as she made her way over to the table, loading off eggs onto everyone's plates.

"Someone must've left a window open," Prue shrugged, putting aside the newspaper as she took a sip of her coffee.

"I like her," Sam commented. He was sort of fond of animals, and they hadn't had a pet in the house since Gram's dog Rasputin had run away a few years ago.

"Probably not the best time to be getting a pet cat, Sammy," Dean muttered, not moving his hands at all from where they were resting in front of him. Piper made a face as there was another crashing sound, and they turned to see that the cat had unfrozen, and had knocked over the pepper shaker.

The others all laughed a little as she went to wrangle it, when there was the sound of tires outside. Prue was the first to look out the window, and was surprised to see a dark head of hair getting out. "Andy?" She muttered, before immediately standing up and rushing for the front door.

The three younger Halliwells all looked up with smiles. Dean and Phoebe even smiled at each other.

"Andy?" They question, salacious and devious tones in their voice as the three of them got up and rushed to look out the window of the sitting room.

"I didn't know he was back in town, too," Phoebe blurted, still smiling.

"Neither did I," Dean grumbled. "What do you think he's doing here?"

"He's gotta be asking her out," Sam said, sounding excited about it. "I mean why else?"

"Could be," a fourth voice muttered, Piper, coming in from the kitchen, "that he works for the police and wants to take us all in."

The three of them looked over at her, but the look on her face made it obvious enough that she was joking. So, Dean smiled and looked back out the window. "Nah. He's definitely asking her out."

Piper rolled his eyes. "I live in a house of twelve year olds..." she muttered before walking to the door, readjusting the cat in her arms before walking out to join Prue. Without hesitation, the other three were hot on her heels, happy, and unsurprised to see the sort of troubled look on Prue's face.

"So what was that all about?" the second sister asked with a smile in her face.

There were knowing grins coming from each of her family members, but Prue sighed and said it anyway. "He asked me out."

"Yes!" declared Dean, high-fiving Phoebe. Of any of the guys his cousins had dated, Andy was the only one he'd ever been sad hadn't worked out. "Please say you said yes."

"Well..." Prue began. "I started to say yes, and then I stopped. I wondered if I could date. I mean, do witches date?"

Suddenly, Dean and Phoebe's faces both contorted. "I sure as hell hope so," Dean grumbled, before heading inside.

Piper and Sam rolled their eyes, while Phoebe giggled, and raised her eyebrows suggestively before following. They all made their way towards the door.

"You guys will not be laughing when this happens to you," she pointed out, annoyed. "Everything is going to be different now."

"At least our lives won't be boring," Phoebe chimed.

"But they'll never be the same," Prue tried again.

"From where I'm standing," Phoebe continued, "that is not bad thing."

"It's not a good thing though," Dean chimed in. "I still say we get rid of it before it starts causing real problems..." He nodded over at where Andy was staring at them in confusion as he drove away.

"That," Piper said, suddenly taking her earlier comment a lot more seriously, "is a good point. What are we going to do?"

"Well-" Dean started, before Prue cut him off.

"We are going to be careful, we are going to be smart, and we a going to stick together."

Dean relaxed a little. "That I can get behind..." he muttered before tugging open the door, and ushering everyone in.

Piper smiled, and looked back at Prue with a smile. "This should be interesting," she said before walking inside.

Prue smiled, and got in last, considering just how right her sister was about that. She looked back to close the door, but paused when an idea came to her, and she smiled before looking up and shutting the door with her powers.

Interesting indeed.

(-:-)

**End Note:** If anyone has a problem with my choice in Dean's Powers, review/message me, and I will give you my reasoning. Not putting it here because it's 5 paragraphs long, though there is a very slight explanation in the fourth episode, which will be posted eventually (its finished, I just need to read through it again).

If anyone would like to discuss my choice of making them cousins or keeping the boys as hunters, I'm free to talk about that too. Note that the boys are not charmed ones, which I go into more in episode 2.

Any other errors, please chalk up to the fact that I have no beta. I read through it like, 13 times before posting, but still, no beta. If you can point me in the direction of one, please let me know.


	2. Chapter 2

Beginning Authors Notes: Second episode, after which I'm going to start mixing things up a little more. Right now I'm still working within the normal framework of the episodes, but I do try to adjust it so that it's more of an SPN type series later on.

Also, I feel weird writing it like this, but Dean's nineteen/twenty in this, so I always have him drinking soda instead of alcohol. If he were with John or Bobby, maybe it would be a different thing, but I get the idea that Grams, and subsequently Prue and Piper, wouldn't encourage him into his borderline alcoholic tendencies. So unless he's having a serious Mindfuck, or John is visiting, or I've made it to the second half of season 3, where he's legal, (or he's at a party where the girls' can't control his beverage choices, _see forth chapter_): he won't be drinking.

Quake was packed as Phoebe walked through the building. She dodged past customer after customer, and had to stop and apologize to a young couple that she bumped into. Even so, she smiled broadly as she walked through the throng of people, feeling gorgeous in the borrowed dress she was wearing, and knowing she was catching eyes as she walked past. To everyone around her she looked like just another hot lady out on the town.

And that was why she was getting such a kick out of knowing she was anything but.

Just a week ago, she, her sisters and her two cousins had found out that they were the descendants of powerful witches. Things had been topsy-turvy with discovering their powers and learning to use magic. She had begun having visions of the future, so far just a few minutes into the distance. Piper had begun to freeze time for the people around her. Prue, their older sister, had begun to move things with her mind whenever she got upset.

Yet, when Phoebe caught sight of Piper as she skittered around busily, Phoebe was reminded that even with magic coming into their lives, the real struggle these days was work. Prue had quit her job the week before, after all.

Additionally, Piper had tirelessly worked to get a job as a chef the past few weeks, but once she was hired, her intended boss had completely flipped things on her, promoting the middle sister to manager at the restaurant Quake. Since then, she had been running around like crazy as of late, and _not_ in the best mood because of the unexpected responsibility.

"I'm gonna kill him…" Piper growled as Phoebe approached her near the bar.

Phoebe raised an eyebrow. "Who?" she asked, knowing full well that the only '_him_'s in Piper's life right now were their cousins, Dean and Sam. And the two of them had been doing nothing but keeping their heads down.

While Phoebe and her sisters had received mostly harmless powers, Dean had gotten the power to blow things up, and was having a particularly difficult time controlling it. He had hardly left the house all week to except to drop Sam off at school, and sometimes go see Piper at Quake.

Sam on the other hand was the only one of them that hadn't developed any powers at all. As the sensible child he was, had been trying to keep life as easy as possible for his now troubled family.

"Chef Moore," grumbled Piper. "He-of-the-phony-accent hires me and then quits to open his own place? Thank you _very_ much!"

"I don't see any customer's complaining," Phoebe replied optimistically, glancing around at the neatly run restaurant around them.

But Piper just made a face. "Hello?!" she blurted. "I am not a restarauntour. I am a chef. I have no idea what I'm doing…" She trailed off to take a breath, before glancing at her sister. Her eyes narrowed at the purple dress she had on. "Are you wearing my dress?"

Phoebe's mouth stayed closed, avoiding an answer to the question, but she noticed a wonderful distraction at her side as a blonde woman walked up. "Hey, Britney," she greeted, grateful for the interruption of one of Prue's friend's from school. She wasn't sure why she was there, but it was always good to see a friend. She noticed the black outline of an angel on her hand, and had to smile. "Oooh, I love that tattoo."

Britney smiled back. "Thanks."

"I thought it was illegal to get them on your hand because of the veins…"

"In the states yeah," Britney responded, moving her hand to admire the angel. "I got it done when me and Prue when to Tahiti last year." With that she looked back to Piper, handing her some money with her other hand. "Keep the change, Piper. I gotta jam."

Piper smiled back. "Okay, say hi to Max," she responded, taking the money.

"Bye…" Britney said as she nodded, and passed by a waitress.

While Piper took a moment to talk to the waitress, Phoebe's eyes wandered down to the other side of the bar where a man was sitting, looking at her curiously. Before she could ponder whether to approach him, though, an image swarmed into her head. The man, whose name she just _knew_ was Alec, was walking over and offering to buy her a drink. She reveled in the premonition for a moment before Piper's voice called her back to reality.

"So about my dress…"

But Phoebe grinned, and cut her off. "Okay, see that poster boy to the left?" she whispered excitedly, eyes pointing to the end of the bar, where Alec was sitting in the real world. Piper raised an eyebrow, and started to turn, but Phoebe called her off again. "Just glance. Don't be obvious…"

More discreetly, Piper's eyes flitted in the direction of the pretty-boy on the other end of the bar. She looked over him appreciatively before looking back to her sister. "I approve. Who is he?"

The smile on Phoebe's face spread slyly. "His name is Alec, and he's about to come over and ask if he could buy me a martini," she answered, leaning forward on the bar.

"How do you know?" asked Piper, her brow wrinkling slightly.

"Let's just say I saw the age old problem of who approaches who," Phoebe said cryptically. Piper's eyes narrowed, not understanding. "I had a little premonition."

A look of panic appeared on Piper's face now. "What?" she breathed, her voice lowering appropriately as she too leaned forward. "Phoebe, you aren't supposed to use your powers. We agreed…"

Phoebe nearly rolled her eyes, not having any of that. "No, Dean and Prue agreed. I abstained," she replied, almost begrudgingly, though she knew she had no right. Her oldest sister and younger cousin were only trying to keep them safe. Dean was under the impression that the powers were being supplied by some evil entity, and didn't want his cousins to get in too deep if it were. Prue just didn't want to draw too much attention to them. "Besides, it's not like I can control it. It just popped into my head."

"That's the whole point," Piper sighed. "None of us can control our powers. That's what scares me. I could panic and freeze the entire restaurant…"

Phoebe had let her attention drift back to Alec, though, and she promptly shushed her sister. "Here he comes!" she blurted, silencing Piper before leaning on the counter and looking like she had nothing better to do.

Piper rolled her eyes just a bit as the blonde tapped Phoebe on the shoulder. "Hi," he greeted. "I was just sitting over there wondering if I could buy you a martini or something."

"A martini, hmmm," replied Phoebe before looking over at her sister for a moment. "Imagine that. I would love one. It's Alec right?"

The man looked caught off guard. "Yeah," he answered, sounding as surprised as he looked. "How'd you know my name?"

"Wild guess. Do you want to grab a table?"

"Yeah…" Alec replied.

Phoebe moved to stand up, but Piper grabbed her hand, and dragged her gaze back. "Prue is gonna be pissed."

"News flash," Phoebe responded, obviously not caring about her elder sister's opinion on the matter. "Stop worrying: you'll get wrinkles."

With that, she walked off entirely, leaving Piper to get back to work. Neither of them, of course, were any the wiser to the evil currently stalking about the restaurant, and terrorizing their friend Britney in the parking lot.

(-:-)

The next morning found Piper standing at the kitchen island by herself, their new cat, Kit, scuttling between her feet while she tried to make breakfast. The kitchen TV was tuned in to the history channel, explaining about the events of one of the many historic witch trials.

She felt uneasy as the story of Mary Este played on screen, explaining how the woman had sought refuge from her persecutors in a church. As soon as she reached the doors, yelling to God for help, lighting struck the church, and everyone was left with the idea that God himself had declared her evil and that she was not worthy of being in his house.

The tragic tale made her twitch nervously.

When she had become a witch, she had been nervous, but she had tried to believe Phoebe that this didn't make her evil. Even Dean had eventually admitted that they weren't inherently evil for being witches. While having their powers might eventually corrupt them, or while whoever had given them the power was a demon and would someday claim their soul: they were not right-out evil.

Even so, the entire premise of being witches had started to scare her. Just looking through the Book of Shadows had shown her the damage that they could cause, how dangerous their powers could be to other people. She was looking at complete strangers differently too, since warlocks were chasing after them now to steal their powers. Anyone she talked to could be someone trying to kill them, and it was terrifying.

Every time she went to work made her fears worse, as she was constantly trying to keep herself in check so she didn't freeze anything. If she froze someone in the middle of the restaurant, or if Prue accidentally moved something at work, or if Dean blew something up in public, or if Phoebe made someone suspicious with her knowledge of the future, or...or just if anything happened with their magic, what would happen then? What if a warlock saw them and decided he wanted their powers? What would normal people think, and what would happen to her family's lives? And what if they _were_ evil?

"You know that's not true, right?"

Piper nearly jumped out of her skin as she turned around, to see Dean leaning against the island, staring at the TV screen just like she was. He was dressed in jeans, with a white t-shirt under a flannel button-up, which meant he wasn't going to work again this morning.

Dean had been taking time away from his job at the auto-shop since this entire witch business started. After all, there were a lot of flammables you came in contact with there, and he was the only one with an overtly dangerous power. He had been trying for days to get a handle on his new ability to blow things up so he wouldn't really hurt someone, and he wasn't going back to work until he manage to accomplish that.

"What?" she managed to choke out in response.

Dean gestured at the TV, being careful that it was a gentle motion that wouldn't set an explosion. "That witches can't enter a church," he replied. "There's no warding or enchantment that can keep a human out of a church. Unless they're possessed or something, even a demon's servant can walk straight onto public property and hallowed ground."

For some reason, as Piper quickly picked up the remote, and turned off the TV, it didn't make her feel any better. "We'll, at least we know all those monsters coming after us can follow us anywhere."

Dean tilted his head, and smiled when he heard the timer for the coffee pot go off, moving to get himself a mug of the caffeinated wonder. "Well, not everywhere," he shrugged. "Private property is safe from certain demons as long as we don't invite them inside."

Piper's face dropped further, and she looked over at him as if to ask if he was serious before huffing and turning off the TV to go back to making breakfast.

Dean's brow wrinkled, and he opened his mouth to ask what was wrong just before Prue walked into the room.

"Morning," she declared.

"Morning," replied Piper sharply, looking pointedly at Dean to silently tell him that he should not ask anything else right now.

"Ooh, you're making pancakes?"

"Yeah. By the way, Andy called while you were in the shower."

Dean's eyebrows rose in amusement, and he turned to the oldest Halliwells with a grin that Prue certainly did not return.

In fact, she actually seemed to panic a little. "What did you tell him?"

Piper and Dean caught onto that tone simultaneously. "That you were in the shower," Piper said shortly. "Bad date?"

"No," Prue answered breathily, though she still looked less than excited to talk to it. "No...no. It was great actually. You know, dinner, movie..." She paused and looked at the countertop. "Sex."

Dean's eyebrows rose sharply. "Excuse me?" he asked with a slight laugh.

Piper smiled a little. "On the first date?" she taunted. "You sleaze."

"If Prue can do it, I get to do it without you guys yelling at me," Dean said, only for Prue to sigh in irritation.

"It wasn't exactly our first date, guys," she said in her defense, but Dean just intercepted again.

"High school doesn't count."

Prue sighed at the two of them and started to walk into the other room. Piper just kept the sly look on her face, and looked at Dean as they both followed her. "Oooh, that bad, huh?"

"No, actually, that good," Prue replied with a long suffering sigh. "It was…well, we were amazing. But that's not the point. I told myself that things would be different; that we would take it slow. It shouldn't have happened, that's all."

"What shouldn't have happened?"

Everyone turned to see Phoebe striding down the stairs, looking a little tired, but overall in a good mood.

Prue opened her mouth to tell Phoebe it was nothing, but Dean looked up at her and said, "Prue slept with Andy," earning him a slap in the arm from Prue.

"Would you be quiet?"

Phoebe looked indignant. "Wait, you weren't going to them but not me? Family meeting!"

At just that moment, the youngest Halliwell started down the stairs, looking way more tired than the others, and just a little confused as to what he had missed. Sam made a face. He hadn't slept well, and he certainly did not want to wake up to a discussion about his family's towel usage.

"What are we having a family meeting about?" he asked, his voice sounding bleary.

"Prue's keeping secrets," Phoebe said, sounding like a two year old.

"Well it's not like it was any of your business," Prue said flatly.

"As younger siblings and younger sibling figures, I think it is all of our business to know what you do when you don't get home till three," Dean said, grinning teasingly, but then rounding on Phoebe. "But that means I also have to ask where the hell were _you_?"

Phoebe's eyes widened a bit. "Oh come _on_," she sighed. "Do not change the subject."

"Don't dodge the question," Prue said, her voice acidic.

With a roll of her eyes, Phoebe responded, "I was home earlier than Prue at least," she said.

"Were you at Alec's?" Piper asked pointedly.

Prue and Dean looked confused, though. "Who's Alec?" Prue asked.

"Some hottie she hit on in the restaurant."

Sam, who was still blinking his way awake as the conversation went on, sort of began to understand what they were talking about, and certainly did not care to hear about everyone's sex lives. He made a noise of disgust down in his throat that was promptly ignored by the rest of the family.

Phoebe looked mildly indignant at Piper's comment. "Excuse me, revisionist history, he hit on me. Remember the whole vision thing?"

At that, Dean's brow tightened. "Vision thing?" he asked. "Phoebe, I thought we talked about that…"

Phoebe didn't say a word in response, prompting Dean to sigh angrily as Prue gaped at her younger sister. Sam rolled his eyes at them and looked at Piper as if he didn't want to be in the middle of this.

"Phoebe!" Prue blurted. "I thought we agreed!"

"No, _we_ didn't," responded Phoebe pointedly. "_You_ agreed, _you_ laid down the law. There's a difference."

"These aren't toys," Dean growled. "We have to be careful or they can get us killed."

"And using them in public means a warlock could find us," Prue followed up.

"It was just one lousy premonition!" Phoebe said. "That was it. No one died, and it's not like either of you can control it any better than I can!"

At that, Dean grit his teeth, and Phoebe had the grace to feel a little guilty. He was actually the only one really _trying_ to learn control. He was also the only one that really needed to, though. On the side, Piper closed her eyes, trying to just wait this out, and Sam looked at the floor.

"Just…take it easy when you're in public, alright?" he said with a sigh.

Phoebe bit her tongue, and then looked back to Prue. This conversation wasn't one that she wanted to be having if it meant being mean. "Either way, nothing happened last night. At least nothing I'm ashamed of."

Prue still looked disapproving, but they all took the mental cue that they didn't want to argue about this right now. Their powers were dangerous, but they still didn't know enough to really be able to argue about it. "There's another reason we have to be careful," she eventually went on, changing the subject. "Andy thinks someone is abducting women in our area."

Concern spread over the other's faces. "Abducting women?" Dean repeated, sounding protective as always. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, warlocks aren't the only evil we have to watch out for."

(-:-)

Andy Trudeau looked seriously at the photograph he was being shown, getting even more unsettled as his day continued on. First it had been Prue running off on him after what he thought was a wonderful night. Now another woman had gone missing. This was _exactly_ how he wanted his morning to go.

"She didn't come home at all last night," the man, Max, was saying, indicating the girl in the picture: his fiancé Brittany. "That's not like Brittany, believe me."

Andy's partner, Darrel Morris, reached out and took it carefully. The taller man was one of the many other homicide detectives that they had on staff, but he was the only one that Andy could really see working with. Even though they both had a serious difference in beliefs about what was acceptable police work, Morris was a good guy to be around, and a good cop.

"Tell me, Max," Morris started. "What time did she leave to go to Quake?"

"Eight, Eight-thirty," Max replied, the distress in his voice to anyone with ears. "She called around ten and said she was coming home. I'm really worried."

"Chances are she'll show up. Usually do," Andy said, knowing that the situation sucked, but she hadn't been missing long enough for a real case to be opened. The women disappearing around Quake recently had been making everyone in the department nervous, especially for Andy, who knew the Halliwells had been hanging out there. "The best thing to do right now is to go home and see if she calls, alright? Will you do that?"

Max looked disappointed at how they weren't doing anything, but he seemed to understand. He nodded at them uncertainly. "Yeah. Thanks," he replied, before starting to walk out of the precinct.

Andy looked over at his partner warily, taking the picture from his hand and waving it pointedly. "Fourth one this week," he said.

Morris looked just as distressed as Andy did, but he knew that Andy was going to start pointing fingers at more _unnatural _reasons for these girls to be disappearing. He looked at his partner seriously before saying, "Yeah, well, they can't just be disappearing into thin air." He also had been picking up how Andy had been acting disgruntled all morning, and narrowed his eyes as Andy twitched a little, looking at the photo he'd been given.

"You do something with your hair?" Morris asked, indirectly pointing out that his partner wasn't acting normal.

Ignoring him, Andy put the picture down on his desk, honestly not wanting to tell his partner about how his high school girlfriend had snuck out of his apartment after their date the night before. Or how he had been so disappointed by it. "At least we narrowed down his feeding pool to the area around the restaurant."

Morris just kind of rolled his eyes. "Better tell your sweetie to lock the door at night," he suggested. Andy pursed his lips, and walked off, deciding that he probably _should_ do just that.

(-:-)

Dean stared warily at the table in front of him as he sat in the attic by himself. Downstairs, Prue was driving out to drop Sam off at school, and Piper was making a phone call while Phoebe cleaned up from breakfast. The conversation earlier that morning had reminded him once more of how none of them could control their powers just yet, and while that was all fine and dandy for Phoebe, it was a serious problem for him.

When they had received their powers last week, Dean's first instinct had been to get rid of them. Since he was young, his father had been insistent that anything with powers like that was dangerous, and had to be killed. It had taken a lot of convincing from Sam, Prue and Phoebe that _maybe_ it wasn't that bad, that witches didn't have to be evil.

After a little while, he had consented. Not all magic practitioners were bad news. Some witches he had come across on hunts were helpful, and gave them protective charms and hex bags. Legitimate psychics were alright, assuming they had learned to control their powers. Even their friend Bobby used spells now and then if it could help them kill a monster or two.

What had really convinced Dean in the end was that there were notes all over the Book of Shadows that convinced him their Grams had been a witch, and he would _never_ believe that the woman that raised him, the woman that raised his mother, was evil.

But even if he had consented to give their powers a test run, he needed to learn to control them. He had been extra careful in the past few days to not get too hyped up or tense about things. Sometimes just waving his arm to point at the grandfather clock had caused a minor explosion, so in the days he was taking off of work, he'd been coming into the attic to try and get a handle on whatever it was that was triggering his powers.

So far, it wasn't going well.

He swore a little as he failed to use his powers on the ceramic cup in front of him, seeing as it was still intact. Figuring out how to prevent it started with figuring out how it worked, after all, so he'd taken all of Piper's least favorite china into the attic and had been trying to blow each piece up on purpose.

Mostly, all Dean had accomplished was looking silly, because anyone looking in through the window would have sworn he was trying to fly with how he was waving his arms. For what had to be the thirtieth time that morning, he put his hands out and flicked his wrists, trying to mimic the motions that had always triggered it before.

The cup still just stood there, mocking him with its pretty floral pattern.

He heard a voice drifting up the stairway as he glared at the cup, and started thinking about what else he should try when the door to the attic opened.

"…Alright, bye Pastor Williams," Piper was saying on the phone, hanging up just as she saw Dean. "How goes destroying my plate set?"

Just to show how fruitless it was, Dean grunted, still staring at the cup. Piper smirked a little, and moved to sit nearby as Dean actually spoke. "Why are you calling Pastor Williams? Something happen at the church?"

Piper shook her head. "No, I'm donating the unused food from the club for their soup kitchen," she answered. "I was calling to confirm that I could drop it off later today."

"Huh…" Dean grunted considerately, looking away from the cup. "Say hi to him for me."

He started to concentrate on the cup again, but at his side, Piper pursed her lips, and started to talk again. "You could say hi to him yourself. Just because you're taking time off of work doesn't mean that you have to stay locked up here until you figure it out."

Dean sighed a little, and leaned back in his chair before looking over at her. "Piper, if something-"

"You've been really good about it the past few days, haven't you?" Piper tried, the tiniest nervous quiver peeking through her voice.

"That isn't the point Piper," he sighed, starting to drag a hand over his face. "This isn't the same as you guys, alright-"

"Yes, but it's scaring me!"

Looking up at Piper and seeing the worry that had caused her exclamation, Dean sort of fell back. He had kind of forgotten that Piper was probably just as stressed as him.

"Dean, between my new job, and worrying about what would happen if I used my powers at work, things have not been normal," Piper explained. "And you holing up at the house is doing nothing to fix that. You're the only one around here that always wants to be out and about and it's freaking me out even more that you're hiding-"

For a few seconds, Dean's normal demeanor came out, and he made a face. "Hey! I don't hide!" he protested, moving to point at her, but then thinking better of it. Just in case.

At the comment, Piper raised an eyebrow challengingly, and Dean had to smile just a bit, even though he covered it up with an annoyed sigh. "Alright. I'll leave the house today, even go to Quake with you and Phoebe if you want."

Piper's concern melted back into a smile, and she moved to stand, but Dean stopped her. "But, Piper, you really don't need to be scared. You know that right? Even if this is all a little twisted right now, we're going to figure it out."

"I know, it's just…freaky…you know?"

Dean rolled his eyes a little. "Trust me, I know…" he said, remembering all of the beasties he and his dad had ganked over the past few years. "But we'll either get a hold of how to use it or we'll get rid of it." He shrugged a bit, and Piper sighed a little as she stood up and started for the door.

"I really hope it's that easy…" she said, walking away.

Dean pursed his lips and looked back to the cup on the table.

"So do I…" he muttered as he waved his arm, not expecting anything different than before.

But for the first time, there was a tiny explosion that made Dean reel back, protecting his face from all the tiny shards flying around.

The cup had blown up.

(-:-)

The building around Prue was bustling with people as she made her way towards her first interview of the week. After quitting her job at the museum the week before, she had of course started job hunting immediately. There were five people at the manor after all: five mouths to feed, five people using the utilities, Sam's college fund to build up, and at least a dozen repairs to be made around the house. She had lucked out with this one, as someone had actually called and offered the job to her without having applied.

That didn't make getting there on time any easier though, since she had been the one to drop Sam off at school, and proceeded to get caught in traffic.

She looked ahead, and saw the elevators that would take her to the twelfth floor, and yelled as the doors were about to shut. "Hold the door!"

Someone managed to catch them before they closed, but as soon as she got through them, she dropped her briefcase, spilling the papers all across the dusty floor. She groaned, and ducked down to pick them up. "Damn it. Can you push twelve please?" she asked the man standing next to the panel, before looking back down and trying to shuffle her papers together.

The man, after pressing the button as asked, knelt down next to her. "Here, let me help," he offered with a smooth British Accent. He picked up a stack of her papers, and made a face of interest. "Eighteenth century French Art? Do you work in the auction house upstairs?"

Prue shook her head. "No, just interviewing," she answered politely. "Don't let me get my King Louis' mixed up." And then her phone started ringing, and she mentally swore again.

_Does this really all have to be happening right now?_ She asked herself, straightening back up as she got her belongings together. As soon as she latched her briefcase back shut, she picked her phone back up, and hit answer. "Hello?" she asked.

"Hey, Prue," a familiar voice responded, and her chest tightened with nerves.

"Uh. Andy?" she questioned, doing her best to turn away from the men in the elevator. "How did you get this number?"

"I'm a detective, remember," responded Andy, almost amused at the question before he went into a more serious tone. "Prue, I think we should talk."

"Yeah," Prue affirmed, though she was still trying to get other things done. "It's just that I am really late to this interview."

"I didn't mean for what happened last night to happen, Prue. You have to know that," Andy continued on, more or less just trying to get it out in the open.

He was direct, she would give him that. Stubborn, and direct, and he didn't let her hide from him. It had been one of the things she loved about him back in school. Not so much _now_ that she had a good reason to hide from him, because while Dean was worried about who owned their souls, Prue was worried about what would happen if the rest of the world figured out about their powers. Andy was the number one person she was trying to keep it from, especially since they had kind of vanquished (in cop speak: Murdered) Piper's boyfriend last week.

Additionally, now was still a _really_ bad time for them to be having this conversation.

"Of course, I'm, you know, totally wrong for it anyway," Prue tried again. She did not want to talk about this. At least not right now. "Stuffy old auction house, I don't even know why they called."

"Come on, Prue. Listen to me. We've known each other for a long time. We just couldn't help ourselves. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

Prue sighed. "I know, Andy."

"All we did was make love."

"I know, Andy," she repeated, her voice going softer.

Andy sighed, obviously not understanding why he was getting nowhere. "Talk to me, help me out here," He pleaded. "Why did you sneak out like that?"

The nerve in Prue's forehead seized up. "I did not sneak out," she said in a low hiss, just knowing the men in the elevator had to be staring at her "You were asleep. I didn't want to wake you. And I did write you a note, you know. I just didn't leave it." As she said the words, though, the signal started to crackle, leaving her hanging at the end of a conversation she didn't want to have. "Hello?" she asked the receiver. "Hello?"

When no response came, more dread ran through her. An addition to the rest of her _wonderful _morning, she had just pissed off the only guy she had really been interested in since Roger. She hung up the phone before looking up at the sign that said she was going up floors. She was still going to be late at this rate.

Irritated, Prue forgot her rule about no magic, and directed her loosely controlled powers to the elevator cables. Immediately the numbers above the elevator door started to rush towards the twelfth floor. She ignored it when she passed the other workers' floors, only letting off the magic when they reached the twelfth floor.

"That was strange," commented the man that had helped her with her papers. "Lucky you, huh?"

Prue grit her teeth as they reached her floor, though she still responded, "Yeah. I'm charmed all right," as she rushed out the door.

(-:-)

Sam rubbed his eyes tiredly as he walked away from his science classroom. Between the headache throbbing at the edge of his skull, and how he hadn't been sleeping much, he had been pretty miserable any time he was on campus.

At home he had been toughing it out. Prue and Piper were stressed enough because of their jobs (or lack thereof), and upsetting Dean right now would not be the best of plans. He had contemplated going to Phoebe more than once, seeing as she was the only one he thought would understand. But if she knew, she'd spill to the others in a second. Phoebe was not a very good secret keeper.

Not to mention, it wasn't like he was really having visions. Not like Phoebe did at least. He'd had one major migraine, and a smattering of images pressed into his head on the day they had all got their powers. Since then, it had only been headaches. Ridiculous headaches. Every day. Pounding in his head as he tried to concentrate at school.

Oh. And Nightmares.

He grimaced, trying not to think about them. In the past week, Sam had dreamed every night about people he didn't know going about their daily lives. He usually didn't remember them, only a few details here and there, but one thing was always the same. At the end, there was always a man that would stalk into his dreams. His yellow eyes would narrow suspiciously, almost confused as to why he was there, before holding out a hand. It was always right then that Sam would wake up, his heart pounding and his mind haunted by yellow eyes.

"Sam!"

The voice jarred Sam from looking at the ground where he was walking, concentrating on each step to try and dull the headache, and made him snap his gaze to the source. Immediately the headache started raging even harder for the disturbance, and it was all he could do not to let out a groan as his friend Brady ran up, clapping him on the shoulder with no mind to Sam's ailment.

"Hey, what was with you today during math?" the blonde chirped quickly. "You didn't even realize when Kaylyn tried to pass you an invitation to that party..."

Sam lowered his head, closing his eyes to try and rub the headache out through his forehead again. "She did?" he grumbled, trying to remember. He didn't even remember Kaylyn was in their math class, actually, so obviously he had missed something.

Brady shook his head, and narrowed his eyes as he looked at Sam. "Really, bro, you alright? You don't look too good right now."

"I've got another headache," Sam admitted, only trying to get to his next class without too much incident. The headaches were usually gone when he woke up...maybe a vision could make it go away. Could he force a vision? Did he _want_ to force a vision?

"That's every day this week you've had one. You need to talk to your cousin about taking you to the doctor or something."

"No..." Sam groaned. "The girls are stressed out enough and I don't want Dean to worry. They'll go away eventually, I'm sure..."

"I'm pretty sure you should be a little more concerned than you are right now," Brady protested. "It's weird and you know it."

Sam sighed, trying to focus on the yellow eyes. Consequences be damned the headache needed to stop. Maybe...

He was silent for a few moments, trying to get a vision to come to him, but as much as he focused, nothing happened. He grumbled a string of swears that he had learned from Dean before looking back over at Brady. "Yeah, but there isn't anything I can do about it right now. I've got some Advil in my locker I can take after English..."

"If you're sure," Brady shrugged, losing interest before grinning. "So about Kaylyn's party."

Sam's headache throbbed again. This had better start getting easier.

(-:-)

"I don't see why I can't have any."

Piper made a face at Dean as they stacked trays of food in the back of the van Quake used for catering. "We're giving it away Dean. You know: charity. It's not for you."

"It'd be like half a piece of chicken," argued Dean as he moved back and started to close the doors. "Jeez, if I'd have known you would starve me I would have stayed home." He moved back over, slinging an arm over her shoulder as they walked back in.

Piper rolled her eyes, but smiled. "I'm such a harsh taskmaster," she played along drolly. "I promise you can just hole up in the attic for the rest of the month if you have to."

"That's all I wanted in life."

Piper and Dean both snorted then, knowing how much of a joke it was. "But seriously, this isn't that bad, is it?" Piper asked. "You can go in public without worrying…"

"We don't know that yet," Dean said, not quite ready to revisit the topic. He might have managed to blow up the cup on demand earlier, but he hadn't been able to do it afterwards, so he obviously had more practice ahead. All the same, it _was_ kind of nice to be out of the house, even if it _was_ to try and make Piper feel better about their situation. "I'm just happy that Sam doesn't have to deal with all of this. Kid shouldn't have to worry about it while he's in high school."

"He's only four years younger than you, and believe it or not, he's already worrying about it," Piper argued back as they started walking back into the restaurant. "He's been dancing around us to try and keep from bothering us, and he hasn't been sleeping right since this all started. He's just as worried as you and me, even if he won't let us know. Besides, who's to say he won't get powers?"

"I don't think it's a coming of age thing, Piper. If he has powers, he would have gotten them at the same time we did."

"We don't know that."

"We checked the book."

"The book doesn't have everything in it. Maybe Sam is special."

"Yes, maybe he lucked out and doesn't have to deal with this. Look, I'm not saying Sam will never get powers, but right now, we shouldn't ask why he hasn't. We have enough problems with _our _powers."

Piper made a face. "Yeah, you're probably right…" she grumbled, before looking at her watch. "It's almost time to go…where's Tommy?"

"Your delivery guy?"

"Yeah, he was supposed to be here ten minutes ago," Piper muttered, mostly to herself as she looked around, and caught a server waving to her. She shrugged Dean's arm off of her shoulder, and rushed over to the server, passing Phoebe as she helped pass out people's checks.

While it wasn't really a paying job, Phoebe didn't really have anywhere else to be at the moment, so she had taken to helping Piper out with her stressful job at Quake. Mostly it was little things: helping to bus tables, passing out menus, but hey: it was something to do.

"Here you go," she said with a smile as she dropped by a couple, the man tall and dark haired; the woman petite with pretty red hair.

As the man turned to Phoebe and thanked her, taking the check from her, her breath caught in her throat. From her time in New York, she had heard so many critical acclaims about this man, saw his pictures all over the city. She had dreamed of meeting him once or twice, when she was stuck at her shitty cashier job and just hoping for an out that didn't involve going home. Obviously she hadn't lucked out like she had hoped, but still, seeing him here was a dream come true.

"Excuse me," she gasped, "but aren't you Stefan?"

He turned to her and smiled charmingly, though his eyebrows knit just a bit. "Yes. I'm sorry, do we know each other?"

"Oh, highly doubtful. I'm just familiar with your work," Phoebe rattled on, still smiling. "Like everyone else in the world."

"Well, I don't know about that, but I'll take a compliment from a gorgeous woman," Stephan said.

Looking over at the red head at Stephan's side, Phoebe smiled apologetically before leaning in and lowering her voice a little. "I'm sure your girlfriend must appreciate that."

Stephan didn't even look in the red-head's direction. He leaned forward and whispered, "She's not my girlfriend."

Phoebe raised an eyebrow and leaned in further, almost sure that she was getting a death glare from the woman next to him. "Then why are you whispering?" she countered.

There was a sigh of irritation, and they turned back to the red head. "Excuse me," she said dangerously, sliding off of the barstool upon which she sat, and heading for the door.

"Oooh, okay…" Phoebe said sort of apologetically to Stephan. "Well, it was really nice meeting you."

"You too," Stephan said, but catching her before she walked off, while moving to scribble something on a napkin. "Listen, listen. I'm in town for a couple of days doing a Porsche shoot. If you're interested…" He moved to hand her the napkin. "Stop by. I would love to photograph you." Phoebe's face went slack with shock. He raised an eyebrow and followed up with, "You _do_ model don't you?"

"In my dreams, yeah," Phoebe said, just a little awestruck, but taking the napkin with a smile before walking back towards the main part of the restaurant, where Piper snagged her by the arm, looking more than a little distressed.

"Driver called in sick: can you help with a delivery?"

"Sure," Phoebe replied, only half listening. "Hey, is that guy at the bar staring at me?"

"There are a lot of guys at the bar staring at you."

"The one at the far end. Tall, dark, brooding, very New York."

Frazzled, Piper looked over Phoebe's shoulder again. "Sorry, no," she blurted before running off.

Raising an eyebrow, Phoebe looked back over to where Stephan had been sitting, only to see that he wasn't there.

(-:-)

Having made it up to Buckland's Auction House on time, Prue had calmed down considerably. The receptionist was a cool woman who had completely understood the delay, and had shuffled her through the door almost immediately.

"He's seen your resume and is very impressed," the woman was saying as they walked towards the owner's office. "I gotta tell you, though, he's already blown out six other applicants."

Prue shook her head. "I still don't know why he's interested," she said, trying to sound humble, but also trying to get an answer. She hadn't even called to see if Buckland's was hiring. "I never even applied.

"He likes what you did at the museum," the receptionist explained. "Even though your ex-boss trashed you. What's Roger got against you anyway?"

"Hard to say," Prue started, the slightest bitter tone coming into her voice, remembering Roger. "Unless shattering his ego counts for something. He's also my ex-fiance."

Knowingly, the receptionist laughed. "Got it," she said, before moving to open the door. "You ready?"

Prue nodded. "Yeah."

Without another thought, the receptionist pushed open the door, and Prue was more than a little disconcerted to see a face she had seen only minutes ago. It was the man from the elevator: the one that had helped her with her papers, saw her use her powers, and overheard her conversation with Andy. And just when her day was getting better.

"Rex Buckland, this is Prue Halliwell," the receptionist introduced. "Interviewing for the new specialist."

Rex smiled at Prue. "Actually we've already met," he said, almost sensing the terror radiating off of her. "Welcome to my stuffy auction house."

(-:-)

When the three middle Halliwells got to the church, there was already a small crowd of volunteers waiting near the drop-off doors. The Halliwells had never been incredibly religious, but Grams had taken them all to Sunday school as children, and the church had remained dear to their hearts. Piper had arranged to donate the unused food to them when she started at Quake, which obviously wasn't going to go unappreciated.

Dean was the first one out of the van, moving to get to the doors and continuing a conversation they had been having on the way over about Prue. "Phoebe, it's not like we've got the simplest situation right now. You can't expect her to chill out after her first screw in six months."

Phoebe rolled her eyes, hopping out after him with Piper. "I know, but you would think she'd be a _little _mellower."

"It's just so un-Prue-like to have sex on the first date. Especially with everything else going on. And she was the one that thought she should stay away from Andy now that we're…" she trailed off, glancing at the people behind them as Dean opened the doors to the van. She pursed her lips. "You know."

"Come on," Phoebe prodded. "You've never had sex on the first date?"

Piper wrinkled her brow and looked over at her younger sister. Even Dean was smirking a little bit. "No, have you?" she asked, but before the Dean's grin could get any wider, she cut them both off from answering. "Don't answer that."

Dean pulled out the first few trays of food and moved to hold them out to the line of people coming up. Phoebe started pulling individuals from him to pass out.

"It's not like it's a regular thing," Phoebe said lightly. "Of course, now that I'm a witch I can see if it's gonna be any good or not before it actually…" She trailed off, as she handed a tray to a man that had walked up. "Hi."

Piper's eyes had gone wide, and Dean looked a little annoyed with her as the man walked away."

"What's the matter with you?" Piper exclaimed. "Are you out of your mind?"

Phoebe just glanced back at her. "Come on, it's not like he took me literally."

"You don't know that. He could have!"

"Piper chill out," Dean said, a little more relaxed about at least this part of things. He'd known about witches and magic far longer than the girls had, and he was more used to how people could be incredibly ignorant if they wanted to be. "People don't take it seriously when people say you're a witch; even hunters will assume you're just joking or an amateur." He passed out the last of his trays before looking back at Phoebe. "Although, for the eighteenth time, don't use your powers like that. As noble as the pursuit for better orgasms is, magic is not a toy."

Phoebe sneered. Piper rolled her eyes. "I just think we need to be extra careful," Piper said moving so that more volunteers could get to the van. Phoebe and Dean followed suit.

"There's careful and then there's paranoid," Phoebe said, just as a familiar face came around from the side of the van.

Pastor Williams was one of the senior priests at the church, who had started there at about the time Dean and Sam had gotten to be Sunday school age. In the large, multiage class the Halliwells had all attended through middle school, he had been the one to give their sermons. He had been incredibly understanding to all of their individual plights: Piper having to deal with everyone arguing around her, Phoebe being the family disappointment, Prue being the oldest and having to take care of everyone, and Sam being the youngest. Sam, actually, still attended the teen service on Tuesday nights. Dean was the only one that had never shared his problems with the pastor, but had asked the man for help translating Latin when he had started helping his father with hunts.

"Phoebe, I didn't know you were back in town he greeted.

The three of them turned and smiled, Phoebe rushing forward to give him a hug. "Hey!"

Pastor Williams chuckled a little. "Take a bit out of the Big Apple, did you?"

"Oh, I ate the worm," Phoebe responded, before pulling back. The van was empty now, so she didn't really have to stick around. "Hey, I'm gonna go get some gum. Anyone want anything?"

"No thanks," Pastor Williams answered, at the same time Dean said, "Nah," and Piper shook her head.

Phoebe nodded, and waved at the Pastor. "Okay, good to see you," she said before departing for the nearest news stand.

"You too," Pastor Williams greeted, before looking at Dean with a grin. "And Dean, I thought you were supposed to go back to traveling with your dad when July came around."

Dean shrugged a little. "Things came up," he answered, not really elaborating but still smiling. He liked Pastor Williams, but he didn't need to know about all of their problems. Especially the supernatural ones. "What about you? You ever get through that copy of Mark I sent you?"

Pastor Williams groaned, and Dean laughed a little. "Per aspera ad astra," the pastor declared, admitting he had serious difficulty. But he still sounded like he had done it. For a few moments, they chatted on the text and its difficulty, as Dean had a rough time of it, too.

Piper however wasn't joining in on such fun. She was staring at the tall doors of the church, remembering the show she had seen on TV earlier. The skies were overcast, making her feel like if she walked up, thunder might clap above her. Even if Dean had told her that churches _weren't_ protected, that still didn't mean what the documentary had implied wasn't true. Witches could still be evil. Witches _were_ still dangerous.

Off to the side, Dean and Pastor Williams noticed how she had zoned out. The pastor raised an eyebrow. "Piper, you okay?" he said, calling her out of his thoughts.

Piper blinked at him for a second. "What?" she asked, trying to consider. "Oh, yeah, fine…just having some trouble with…things."

He raised an eyebrow. "Is it something you would like to talk about?"

Dean's brows furrowed a little. "I doubt it," he said, trying to discourage her before they got into this. "It isn't much of a spiritual issue." Again, Dean liked Pastor Williams, but he _did not_ need to know about their problems. In his experience, the religious were the first ones to declare anything evil, regardless of whether it was a creature of hell or not. Dean might not like witches, but he could ignore Leviticus long enough to know some witches didn't use their powers for evil. The only holy-man he trusted to know a demon from a drunk was an ex-hunter in Minnesota with a serious arsenal hidden behind the altar.

Piper didn't seem to get the hint though. "I don't know you might be able to help."

Dean sighed a little to himself and went to close the van doors while Piper stepped closer to Pastor Williams.

"Alright, so here's the deal," she started, trying to find the words. "I've got this friend. Has a little problem. Could be bad. Not quite sure what to tell her."

"You wanna go inside?"

A shot of fear went through Piper's chest, despite knowing nothing would happen. "No. I mean. I've gotta get going."

The pastor's brow knit. "So what's the problem."

"Well, she kinda, sort of thinks she might be a witch."

Pastor Williams only looked more concerned, and where he was leaning against the vehicle, Dean rolled his eyes.

"That's not a good thing, is it?" Piper asked, seeing his reaction.

He seemed to shrug a little. "Certainly not a question I get every day. How well do you remember Sunday school lessons?"

Piper only shrugged a little. She hadn't really been to church since she had gone off to college. Sam had started lecturing them last week on the merit of biblical demons versus the real thing, and how prayer, holy water and other Judeo-Christian practices could help against creatures. Aside from that, she didn't remember much.

He continued. "I suggest Exodus 22:18. Thou shall not suffer a witch to live."

And boy did that sound dangerous. "Meaning?" she choked out.

"If you go by the old school: it means put her to death. She's evil."

Piper's eyes bulged, and Dean barely choked down a sigh.

(-:-)

Phoebe didn't have to walk too far to the nearest news stand. She glanced over the magazines while grabbing a pack of gum, picking out a copy of _People_ before going to the register.

"Here you go," she said to the cashier, before looking over to an elderly couple standing nearby.

"Three-twenty-five," the cashier said, at about the same time the old man said, "Should be the grandchildren's birthdays."

Phoebe looked closer. The old man was holding a lottery ticket, with his wife next to him as they tried to pick out the numbers. The man caught her eye as she looked over and smiled. "It's a ten million dollar jackpot," he explained. "Who knows? I mean today may be our lucky day. If not, we're gonna lose our house."

Phoebe frowned, thinking how that sucked. She looked at the lottery tickets, considering buying them a few more if it meant they could have a bigger chance.

When her fingers brushed over the orange paper, though, there was a flash behind her eyes of the lottery announcements. Ping pong balls line up across a TV screen, rolling over again and again showing her the numbers.

"Four, sixteen, nineteen, thirty, thirty two and forty," she said outloud the second the vision ended. She jarred herself out of the stupor of the vision to turn back to them. "Those are the winning numbers.

The elderly couple looked confused, but the cashier just snorted. Yeah right, lady. You want this stuff or don't you?"

But Phoebe just walked over to the old man. "Four, sixteen, nineteen, thirty, thirty two and forty," she repeated. "Trust me, Mister. Today is your lucky day." She walked over to the stand, and picked out a ticket herself. "I think I'll buy one of these lottery tickets too…"

As soon as the ticket was filled out, she excitedly ran back to the van. Dean and Phoebe were just getting in. Dean raised an eyebrow when he saw how excited she was.

"What are you smiling about?" he asked.

Phoebe just hopped into the car after him.

"Nothing."

(-:-)

After her interview had gotten underway, Prue had begun to think that maybe she had been worried over nothing. Rex Buckland was a very professional businessman who seemed to know what he was doing. He'd been happy with all of her answers to his questions, and he seemed to have forgotten about the elevator.

"So how many divisions did you correct?" he asked, following up a question about Prue's duties at the museum.

"Seven," she replied, "including the Carlton Estate. It should be on my resume."

Rex turned a page in the stack he held on the many pieces she had acquired or validated for the museum. "Franklin Carlton," he stated, reading off the page. "That's quite a coup."

Prue nodded, keeping up good form for her potential boss. "Well I tend to be on the persistent side," she said. "I usually get what I want."

"I don't doubt it. It's a shame, though that you think you're…how did you put it in the elevator?"

Prue's face began to fall as he started to say that. Of course he would bring that up when she had thought she was nearly home free.

"…Totally wrong for the job?"

That part especially wasn't fair. She hadn't even been thinking when she said that, just trying to get Andy to realize she was busy. Her eyes narrowed. "That was a private phone conversation," she said firmly, trying to keep her tone civil.

"Hardly."

There was a beat where Prue considered just ripping into him for his audacity, but she was better than that. She could keep this professional. "You called me, remember?" she stated. "Not the other way around. And while we're at it, I think it's incredibly unfair that you eavesdrop on a private call and then you judge me based entirely on what you thought you heard."

Rex had the grace to look at least mildly apologetic, although he still didn't seem like it had changed his mind. "I apologize. It was unfair of me," he said, apparently just as professional in his own way. "I'm new to all of this. I've only just taken over the house from my father, so I'm very protective of it. But knowing that, what you did at the museum, attracting the younger market, it's totally consistent of what I want to do here. It's just when all these qualifications are signed, it's very important to me that whoever I hire truly wants to be here." As he trailed off the intercom beeped. He looked away from Prue to speak with the receptionist. "Yes?"

"Excuse me, Mr. Buckland," the woman apologized through the speaker. "Your next interview is waiting. Should I reschedule him?"

Rex looked up, and caught Prue's eye for a moment, considering. "No," he eventually said. "I think we're done here." He let go of the button, and Prue began to stand and collect her briefcase, knowing that her time was up.

"Well, thanks for your time," she said politely before walking towards the door. Part of her stomach felt like it was sinking. With four of them in the house, two of whom didn't work, and the dozens of repairs that needed to be made at the manor, she needed the job. A job she had blown a chance at because she couldn't talk to Andy truthfully.

Thinking about it, she realized she had reached the door, and that she was not okay leaving it at that. She turned around to face him again. "My area of expertise ranges from Ming Dynasty to a Mark McGuire rookie baseball card. You name it, I can identify it. Now I may not have sought out this job originally, but I do want it. And I am definitely right for it."

Rex's face didn't seem to change on the matter, but just getting the words out made Prue feel much better about it. Even if she doubted she would get the job, she walked out with a marginally higher confidence level than she had come in with.

(-:-)

There was a furious pounding in Sam's head as he strolled next to Brady. School had let out fifteen minutes ago, and Brady had planned on them working on their history project together at his house. The plans had been made weeks ago, though, so Sam hadn't accounted for his magic-related headaches, and was mentally arguing with himself on whether to back out or not.

Brady, for his part, seemed to be debating it too. Like anyone else that had been paying attention, he had seen the looks of pain on Sam's face for the past week. Brady had suggested it more than once that he should just go home, even though he was relying on Sam's help on the project for a passing grade this semester.

It wasn't like going home would change anything, though. Sam would be able to keel over in the privacy of his own home, maybe even take a nap to get a dream-vision so the headache would go away. Yet the headache would build just as quickly as before, and he'd still have to do his homework.

At Brady's fifth insistent comment that he just go home, Sam grit his teeth further.

"Sam, you can't even walk straight," Brady said flatly. "You need to go home or see a doctor or something."

What was sad was that he wasn't exaggerating, and Sam knew it. His steps had begun to stagger with how bad the pain had gotten, and he'd been keeping his eyes shut so tight that his vision blurred when he opened them. "It won't help anything," he said. "No one is going to be home tonight. I just need to sit down."

"You've been sitting down at school all day and that obviously didn't help," returned Brady. "Come on, dude, something isn't right."

Sam shook his head, and instantly regretted it when the motion just made the sides of his head throb harder, sending a wave of nausea into his chest. Without another step down the sidewalk, he audibly hissed at the pain, and suddenly found that remaining upright was too difficult to manage under current circumstances.

When he hit the concrete beneath him, he heard Brady yelling, and he felt the pavement scrape his elbows. He didn't pay attention, though, because for that moment, the pain in his head only got worse, making him feel as if his skull was being pressed apart from the inside.

Just as it felt like there were cracks forming in his skull, an image flashed behind his eyes, just like in his dreams. This time though, there was only one vision.

There was a girl, blonde, with multiple ear piercings and wearing a pink t-shirt bawling her eyes out as a man screamed at her. Sam didn't know her name, but he knew that the man was her father, and that he was furious with her for something she had done. It was only a flash, and for the first time, it wasn't followed by a pair of eyes.

The moment passed, and Sam blinked back into reality. He stared at the sky for a few long moments, trying to make sense of what had happened, laying down awkwardly on top of his text-book-stuffed backpack. The pain in his skull had faded fast. Brady was hovering next to him, along with a woman walking her dog, and a mail man that had been walking by. All of them looked exceptionally worried.

Sam blinked at Brady first, his cheeks flushing from both confusion and embarrassment. "Err…"

His friend didn't look any more impressed than he had been a few moments ago. "Okay, no," he said flatly. "We're walking to my house, and my mom is driving you home."

With that, Brady and the mail-man hauled Sam to his feet. As he regained his balance, Sam couldn't help but think that might be for the best.

"Yeah, okay…" he managed to mutter, starting to walk a bit more surely towards Brady's house.

(-:-)

Andy glanced out the car window as he and Morris sat outside of Quake. As many girls as had been abducted, Andy had begun to think outside the box. If some psycho had been raping or killing these women, they would have known. A body would have been found, or a woman would have turned up at home with severe injuries. Someone would have reported _something_ at the very least. His less orthodox conclusions, as always, were freaking his partner out.

"What do you want me to say?" he said in his own defense. "This does not feel right to me. I can't help it."

Morris looked long suffering. "Here we go again…"

"I mean, where are they, right? What's this guy doing to these poor women?"

"Thinking alien abduction, are ya?" Morris challenged, telling him in fewer words that his ideas were getting crazy.

"I'm serious, Morris."

"I know. That's what scares me," Morris sighed. "Let me guess: favorite movie when growing up? Ghostbusters?"

Andy huffed indignantly.

"Look, we got a crazy, Trudeau. Likes the pretty ladies. That's it, the end. If he comes back, we're gonna grab him, tag him, make the world a safer place. That too hard to follow?"

Without answering the real question, and submitting to Morris' idea of what they were dealing with, Andy just looked out the window.

"Evil Dead Two," he said.

Morris looked over at him, and Andy smiled.

"Favorite movie growing up. Just for the record."

His partner rolled his eyes again, leaving Andy to go back to watching the restaurant just as a sleek black car pulled up, and none other than Prue Halliwell stepped out. She was dressed in black, and looked gorgeous as she handed off her keys to the valet.

Morris had been looking elsewhere. "Bank across the street," he was suggesting as Andy reached for the door handle. "I think we should grab the ATM tapes and see if…"

As if he hadn't realized that Morris was speaking, Andy popped open the door.

"Whoa-whoa, where are you going? No. Forget it Romeo. You're not blowing our cover!"

Andy just sighed, and looked back, ducking under the hood of the car to look at him. "Come on, Morris. Cut me some slack. I have to talk to her." Morris still looked stern. "Please? Five minutes. That's all I need."

With a sigh, Morris raised up his right arm, indicating that he would keep an eye on the time, and Andy smiled at his win. Without another second wasted, he rushed into Quake to see if he could catch up to Prue.

(-:-)

Dean watched in amusement from the bar as Piper rushed around during the dinner rush. It wasn't like he enjoyed seeing his family stressed out, but as an honorary little brother, he still it entertaining how frazzled she was.

"Cindy, come on. Your salmon's up," Piper instructed, swooping back past the door to the kitchen, and harping on a bus boy. "Hector, you're way behind. We need clean plates."

She huffed a little as she moved over to where Dean was sitting. He just grinned at her. "Come on Piper, you can chill a little."

"Chill?" Piper growled at him, not noticing how Prue was walking towards them. "I am not going to chill. I've nearly frozen three people and we are so understaffed it isn't even funny. Can you please go and…"

As if not realizing how stressed her sister was, Prue walked up and interrupted. "Did either of you give Andy my number?" she demanded.

Piper's expression became more pinched at the question. "No, why?"

Prue looked at Dean pointedly, who started to raise his arms as if to say he was innocent, but Piper put a hand on his arm to stop the movement. Dean looked a little put out and agitated, remembering how his powers might have gone off by accident if he continued. "When would I have even talked to Andy, Prue?"

With a roll of her eyes, Prue added "Never mind" to her statements, and slid onto the stool next to Dean before Piper put her face down on the bar.

"Remind me why I wanted to do this for a living."

"At this rate it looks like you're the only one of us who's going to be doing _anything_ for a living," muttered Prue. "I think I blew my interview."

Dean nudged her with his elbow. "Can't have gone that bad," he said with a smile. "Besides, assuming I can get control of this bullshit with my hands, I still have a job."

Prue opened her mouth to reply, knowing he couldn't take much more time off. Yet something caught her eye before she could say as much. Phoebe was on the other side of the restaurant wearing a slinky black dress, chatting up some guy with dark hair.

"What's Phoebe doing here?" she asked sharply.

Dean swiveled on the stool a little. He made a disapproving face. "Flirting."

"And she's wearing Armani…" Prue grumbled. "Where did she get that?"

"Not from my closet," Piper said shortly before hearing someone yelling for her from the front doors. She groaned again. "Gotta go."

As Piper walked off, though, Prue stood up and started stalking over towards her sister. Sensing danger, Dean stood up too, following her warily.

Phoebe saw them approaching and smiled. "Prue, hi," she greeted, sounding like a high class socialite, as if the dress changed who she was. She looked at the man sitting across from her, Stefan who she had met earlier that day. "This is my other sister," she explained to him. "Prue, this is Stefan, the photographer."

He looked up at her with a smile. "Pleasure," he said, reaching a hand out.

Politely, Prue took his hand shaking it firmly. "Likewise," she said, before looking back to Phoebe. "Nice dress."

Phoebe's eyes seemed to dull at this topic, and as Dean sensed the argument that was about to explode all over Piper's restaurant, he started to step forward as Phoebe said, "Don't worry. It's not yours."

"I know," Prue said lowly. "I could never afford it."

"Ah, will you excuse the three of us," Dean interrupted, smiling with all the charm he could muster as he started to tug Prue back towards the kitchen, and looked at Phoebe intensely enough that she stood up.

"Armani?" Prue said acidly as they made their way towards the kitchen, barely making it through the double doors before her voice raised to at least twice the volume. "How are you going to pay for that? You're broke!"

"Not for long," Phoebe defended herself.

"Guys, come on, it's just a dress, this isn't worth fighting over," Dean started

But despite his trying to keep the peace, but Prue interrupted him. "What does that mean? You didn't use your powers again, did you?"

The _P _word immediately told Dean that there would be a fight one way or another, and he wasn't going to be able to back Phoebe. He looked over at her with his eyebrows lowering, and Phoebe just glared at Prue.

"Maybe, are you telling me_ you_ haven't?" Phoebe barbed back.

"Phoebe," Dean sighed. "I thought we talked about this."

But Phoebe rolled her eyes. "We didn't _talk_ about anything," she started.

Just then, Piper brushed up, looking frantic and frazzled. "What are you guys doing in here?!" she blurted insistently.

"Same thing we do at home," said Phoebe darkly.

"What did you do, huh?" Prue asked. "Go to the track, play the market? What?"

Dean moved to stand next to Piper, dragging a hand over his face and feeling a little sick that Phoebe had used her powers for that.

"The lottery," Phoebe confirmed, looking entirely unconcerned about the implications.

"Phoebe," Dean groaned.

"What did you want me to do?" she replied, steadily defending her decision. "Ignore the premonition? Not help a needy family? That's what we're supposed to do, right?"

"No," Prue growled back. "We are _not_ supposed to use our powers for our own personal gain. That's what it says in the Book of Shadows, and _that_ is what hunters will go after you for!"

Piper's face was getting close to panic. "Not so loud!" she hissed, starting to breathe heavily as she looked about at the staff, who were thankfully not paying attention.

Phoebe's voice only got louder. "You said we needed money, right? Well I'm getting some."

"Not like this though!" Dean growled at her struggling to keep his hands by his sides.

"Come on you guys!" Piper said again, her voice shaking, just in time for the door to open and for Andy to walk through.

Looking at Prue, he was completely ignorant of the bus-boy heading his way, and just when he said Prue's name, they collided. The bus-boys armful of plates went flying, and Piper gasped, her arms flying up.

"Watch it!" she yelped, only for everything in the room to suddenly freeze.

The Halliwells were silent for a few seconds as they took it in, but as soon as it set in, Piper started to hyperventilate. "Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, not again…"

"Damn it you two," Dean growled, moving to turn Piper around and calm her down.

"This is my fault?" Phoebe asked as Prue just skittered towards the door. Looking out, her eyes widened when she realized the rest of the restaurant was still in full swing.

"This is everyone's fault," Dean growled. "C'mon Piper, look at me…"

Piper just kept trying to stammer out how this shouldn't be happening, and then realizing that something else was wrong. "You guys aren't freezing?"

"I guess it doesn't work on witches," Phoebe said. "How long does it last?"

Piper shook her head, and closed her eyes, gripping Dean's wrists in an attempt to settle herself down. "I don't know," she answered. "Not that long."

Prue looked over her shoulder, towards the restaurant doors. "Uh, it doesn't work out there."

More terror made its way into Piper's chest, and she dug her fingers further into Dean's wrist. "Oh tell me this isn't happening?" she choked, sounding close to tears.

"It's okay, Piper. Just chill out," Dean directed. "It's gonna be alright…"

But then Prue spoke up again as she saw Darrel Morris walking in through the front door, looking for his partner. "Oh god, Andy's partner just came in and he's heading this way."

"What are we gonna do?" Piper gasped.

Phoebe looked at Piper, sort of realizing that Prue and Dean were apparently right about magic being trouble. Just because her powers weren't as overt as theirs didn't mean that she shouldn't treat them as dangerous. She looked over at Prue. "Stall him," she directed, before looking for some way to help.

Prue rushed out the door, talking to Morris as he kept trying to move to the door, who certainly didn't look impressed. Phoebe moved to where the bus-boy was handling dishes, and started pushing them all down and back into the tray.

Dean just kept talking to Piper, ignoring how her nails were cutting into his skin as she struggled to regain her breath. "Okay, breathe, Piper. Breathe."

Prue's voice came from the other side of the door loudly. "…I really haven't seen Andy," she told Morris, just before they came in through the kitchen doors.

Everything in the room unfroze at the perfect moment, almost looking seamless to Morris and Andy. Phoebe grabbed the tray out of the bus-boy's hands, saving the dishes. Andy looked around sharply at having bumped into someone, and Piper was managing to look reprimanding towards both Andy and her bus-boy.

But Dean hadn't realized that while calming Piper down, he had stepped directly in front of a chef trying to carry a tray of food towards the door. When she collided with his back, Dean's muscles tensed and his hands flew out, magic flying through his fingers.

There was a bang. The stove behind Phoebe Andy and the bus-boy burst apart, sending shrapnel flying and making them all hit the ground. Dean ducked and covered as the chef stumbled, falling to the ground while her tray showered Dean and Piper with food. Dishes clattered on the ground, breaking despite Phoebe's efforts, and sending shattered porcelain across the floor.

Just when things had been under control, the kitchen was a mess again.

Andy and Morris sprung into action, dragging Prue, Phoebe and the bus-boy back while another chef came up with a fire extinguisher. Prue looked over the situation with wide eyes, not being able to do anything.

Where she was standing with marinara-sauce dripping down her front, Piper couldn't help but let a wail escape her throat as tears started rolling down her cheeks.

Dean looked at the situation and staggered to his feet. He tried to take care of the most important problem, grabbing Piper around the waist and pulling her to the side where she could face away from the chaos and hide her face in his shoulder. He tried not to think about how this was his fault. He tried not to think of how he never would have been able to nearly set Piper's restaurant on fire when he didn't have powers.

"What the hell was that?!" Darrel shouted, hauling Phoebe to her feet. She shared a look at Prue, then they both looked over to Dean and Piper. Dean saw them looking, and immediately looked away.

"I don't know," Prue said quickly, moving so that the officers wouldn't see Dean or Piper basically hiding. "Whatever it is, it can't be good."

"Exploding ovens are _definitely_ not good for a busy kitchen," Andy declared. "Could be a gas issue. I'm gonna call the fire department to look at that, and clear the front room." He and Morris walked out, presumably to shut the restaurant down for the night

The chefs and waiters in the kitchen grumbled, but there was a general murmuring of assent as they walked out after them.

Piper looked up from Dean's shoulder and started to wipe her eyes as Prue and Phoebe walked over to them. She didn't even really look at them as she started to follow her staff. After all, she had to call the owner, and make sure that all of the customers left, _and _reschedule anyone who had had a reservation.

She looked at her sisters for a long second before growling, "I hate being a witch."

With that, she walked out of the kitchen, completely brushing off Phoebe when she reached out to comfort her, leaving the other three alone in a burnt kitchen.

Phoebe and Prue both looked sadly at Dean, who grit his teeth and started to follow Piper, not saying a word.

(-:-)

The day afterwards found Piper sitting in the attic in Dean's stead. Everyone's argument and the incident at the restaurant had put a spell of foul moods on the house, and it didn't look like it was lightening up. Dean had locked himself in the basement, convinced that his powers were still too dangerous to keep. Phoebe and Prue weren't talking to each other. Piper herself had done her best not to cry herself to sleep from how stressed she was.

With a few hours left to go before she had to be at work again, she had gone back to the attic to look through the Book of Shadows. She had hoped that trying to sort through her thoughts and fears about being a witch, she would forget about how much would need to be done when she went and dealt with setting the kitchen back up.

So engrossed in it, she almost didn't hear the door open, and didn't actually look up until she saw Sam sit in front of her, looking tired and concerned. Since it was Saturday, he had tried to sleep in, but with no luck. "Hey," he greeted. "What's with everyone downstairs?"

Piper looked up at him and made a face. "We might have had an incident at the restaurant last night," she explained shortly. Sam hadn't been awake when everyone had gotten back, so of course he hadn't known.

The look on his face grew more concerned. "Like a Phoebe and Prue fighting incident, or a powers incident?"

Piper swallowed hard, and looked back to the book as she closed it, and hugged it to her chest. "Both," she managed to choke out. "We had to close the restaurant because of an exploding oven." She choked on the last few words, and couldn't even pretend to smile for him.

Sam's eyes widened, and he surged forward to hug her, trying to be comforting. "Aw man, everything's okay, though, right? No one saw? No one knew?"

"No…" Piper managed to get out. She was trying not to cry as he hugged her, or to burden him with her fears.

He pulled back though, and gave her a look that said he knew she was going to have to spill one way or another. Sam wanted her to spill, actually. They had been trying as hard as they could to not worry him, and it wasn't working. He wanted to be a part of this, even if his own powers weren't exactly as obvious as theirs were. Even if he was hiding them so they wouldn't worry more. "Then that's not what's bothering you. If everything was okay at Quake…"

"That's it!" Piper declared, curling herself over the book further. "Everything wasn't okay. We are so screwed now that we're witches. Phoebe doesn't think so because she's not afraid of anything, and while I envy her for it, she's going to get in trouble. Dean is trying to keep it together, but he won't go out in public with his powers now, and Prue…"

"Piper, it's going to be fine. This doesn't have to be a bad thing," Sam tried to say, sitting across from her and trying to calm her down, while inside, he was afraid of the same thing.

"But that doesn't mean it's a good thing either. It's like our whole lives have been like everybody else's: rushing off to work, buying shoes, trying to figure out what's for dinner and suddenly, we wake up and everything is different," Piper choked. "We're witches now, and we don't know anything about it. We don't know why we have them, what they mean. We don't even know where they came from. How do we know it's not from evil? That we won't become evil?"

Sam swallowed hard, and tried to keep talking to her. He knew almost as much as she did after all, and unlike Phoebe, he wasn't entirely sure whether their powers could be trusted. "We've been over this. You're good witches."

"What about Jeremy? What about all the other things he said would be coming after us? How do we know we're not just like them? Sam, we're _dangerous,_" Piper continued arguing. "_That's_ what scares me. We just don't know…" She shook her head, putting the book down next to her. "I just wanna be normal again. As messed up as that was, is that too much to ask for?"

"Piper, listen to me," replied Sam looking at her intently. "You are the most caring person I have ever met. I mean, that, alright. You're always there to help anybody, even strangers. You've been doing it your whole life. Even if we don't know where these powers came from, there's no way that you've been given this…this gift if it wasn't to do good things with it. Whether or not we figure it all out, we're going to protect the innocent just like the book said, alright?" Piper looked dubious, but Sam raised his eyebrows in challenge.

"If you want to hear it from someone else I can drag Dean or Phoebe up here."

That made Piper laugh, and Sam smiled.

"You've got nothing to be afraid of," he said, moving to tap her on the shoulder affectionately, and to pick up the book. He was more or less positive that keeping it near her right now was completely going to reverse his pep-talk, so he'd take it with him for now. "Anyway, you might want to get downstairs before Phoebe tears up the front room. She said something about a photoshoot, and needs to borrow your keys."

Piper seemed to calm down after that, and smiled, standing up. With that, they both walked out of the room.

(-:-)

Prue tried to fight down the butterflies in her stomach as she sat across from Andy for lunch. Things had been hectic the night before. Andy had stayed at the restaurant with Morris until the fire department showed up, and they had talked long enough to schedule lunch together.

She was trying not to feel nervous. After all, this wasn't her first date with him, and it wasn't like they were teenagers. It was just a conversation. Well, a conversation about how they'd had sex and how it shouldn't have happened. Awkward, maybe, but it shouldn't be nerve wracking.

The real problem was that she was going to have to tell him that it couldn't happen again. What had happened at the restaurant had been more than enough to convince her of that.

A waitress dropped by, placing coffee in front of the two of them. Andy smiled at her, and said thanks before looking towards Prue.

Simultaneously, they started talking.

"Uh Andy-"

"Look, Prue…"

They both staggered to a stop before trying again.

"You go first."

"Go ahead."

They stopped again, and laughed. At least it was a _fun_ awkward.

This time, Andy got his words in first. "I'm not sorry it happened, Prue."

Prue bit her lip a little. "Well, I have to be honest with you Andy, I am," she said. His face started to fall again, and she felt guilty. "I mean, not because I didn't enjoy it. I did. Especially the…um."

Andy laughed a little. "Yeah. That was great."

"And of course so was the…uh."

"That was nice too."

Prue fought the smile off of her face, though. This wasn't supposed to be about the great sex. "Yeah, but you know that's not the point. It's…" _It's that I'm a witch, and that if you ever find out, you'll know that we nearly killed a dozen people yesterday. _"I haven't seen you in almost seven years. Just starting right back where we left off is…"

Andy nodded, sounding sad. "I know, I know. Believe me. I just wanna know why you left, that's all. Why can't you tell me? What's the big secret?"

Prue looked him in the eye, and wished she could tell him. "Believe me, you don't wanna know."

Andy leaned forward. "Try me," he challenged.

She tried not to sigh. "My life, it's gotten a little complicated," she explained, because if that wasn't the truth, then nothing was. "I just don't think that I should get involved in anything right now."

"Prue, we had sex, it doesn't mean we have to elope," Andy replied, sounding a little upset. "Why don't we just pretend it never happened?"

Alright, even if she didn't want to see him again, that was _not_ what she wanted to hear. Her eyes narrowed a little. "Do you want me to toss you a life preserver now, or just let you sink on your own?"

But Andy just laughed. "No, no, I'm serious," he said. "Why don't you just count that one as part of our old relationship and we'll slow down, and start another. Prue we've been given a second chance here, I don't wanna blow it this time."

Prue pursed her lips, starting to feel like maybe it would work, but her phone started ringing at the same time Andy's beeper started going off.

Andy sighed. "Dating in the nineties," he commented.

Prue winced a little. "Excuse me," she said, turning away from him to answer the call. "Hello?" she asked the caller.

"Yes, hi Ms. Halliwell, this is the Buckland Auction house calling to see if you are still interested in the specialist's position. Mr. Buckland has asked for you to come in again to verify your skill set. Would some time on Wednesday work for you, maybe at noon?"

Prue's face lit up. "Uh, yeah, absolutely," she answered happily. "I'm sure I can make that."

"That'll be great. I'll just schedule you in and we'll see you then."

"Okay, thanks," Prue said, happy just as she turned to Andy, who also looked like he had to go. "Uh, just give me a little time to think things over, okay?" she said.

Andy only nodded. "I guess that's the only option right now. Apparently there's been a break in a case, so I've gotta go…"

There was a nod. "You go ahead, I'll cover the coffee," she said. Andy smiled thankfully, and flagged down a waitress for Prue as he walked out.

Five minutes later, Prue strode out the door of the restaurant to head home. The situation with Andy had been pushed back, but at least she had time now to try and fix things with Dean and Piper.

Trying to get her keys out of her purse, she nearly ran into someone, though, and wound up staggering to look up at the old woman.

At first glance she was just going to say sorry and move on. She didn't know this woman, and there was no need to waste any time. But then the woman put a hand on Prue's arm, trying to steady herself, and Prue saw a faded black angel that looked incredibly familiar.

With that, she looked up, and actually looked at the woman. She had frizzy, yellowed hair that could have once been blonde, hollowed cheeks with day old rouge smudged around, mascara that belonged on a much younger woman, and a sweater that her friend Britney had bought just three weeks ago when they went shopping together.

She looked back at the tattoo, then back up, just _knowing_. "Britney?" she asked in a low voice.

The woman gaped at her. "Is that my name?" she asked, sounding as confused as Prue felt.

For a few moments, Prue could only gape.

(-:-)

Piper didn't actually knock when she walked down into the basement, holding a plate with a sandwich on it. She hadn't seen Dean out of his room all day, and had been worried about whether he'd even eaten since everything last night. It was stressful, she knew, and she wasn't going to let _him_ suffer if Sam wasn't going to let _her_ suffer.

The basement, admittedly, wasn't the most desired room in the house. It was dark, noisy because of the boiler, and all of the furniture were pieces that had been falling apart when Gram's died. When they were younger, Dean and Sam had shared a room upstairs, since Grams refused to let any of her grandkids use the basement as a bedroom. Since he had come back from hunting with his dad, though, Dean had insisted on his own room in case he wanted to have _company_ over. He'd taken Phoebe's until she had come back last week, and now he was relegated to the basement.

He was sitting on a rickety bed in the corner, when she got down the stairs. His back was pressed against the wall, and he had a stack of the other magic books Grams had had in the attic.

Piper coughed, catching his attention before getting too close or surprising him by accident. Dean looked up slowly. He looked a little miserable.

"Hey," she greeted slowly.

Dean tried to smile at her. "Hey," he replied. "That for me?"

She nodded, and walked forward, taking a seat next to him on the bed. He put the book down next to him and ravenously started on it. Apparently, he _hadn't_ eaten.

"So what have you been up to?" Piper asked, looking over his shoulder at the stack of books.

Dean sighed a little, trying to get his hands around the sandwich. "Just looking at some stuff," he grumbled. "I doubt there's a how-to manual for witch powers, but it can't hurt."

"I guess," she muttered, looking up at the ceiling.

Dean took a bit of his sandwich. "Wha' 'bou' you?" he asked around a mouthful of bread. "Wha've you bih' doin'?"

Piper made a face. "Swallow," she chastised, before leaning against the wall herself. Dean wiped his mouth as she continued. "I haven't been doing much actually. Mostly just thinking."

"Bout what?"

She took in a breath, chest heaving a bit. "It's just, after everything in the past week, I just can't figure out our powers. Phoebe's using them to help people. Prue doesn't want to deal with them. Sam's convinced that they're for good…but you and me just keep making trouble. Are they good or bad?"

Dean sighed a little and put down the sandwich. For a moment, he looked at the ceiling, almost answering that he didn't know either. After nearly killing a kitchen full of people the night before, it was understandable. But he wasn't stupid, and he knew that it wasn't what Piper needed to hear.

"It's neither," he answered.

Piper's brow knit, and she looked over at him.

"Magic isn't good or bad in itself. It's how it's used," he turned a little, picking a book up out of the stack, and handing it off to her. There wasn't a title on the front, and the spine was too worn out to read, but when Piper flipped it open, there was a picture of a woman holding her hand to someone's blood covered arm, apparently healing it. "I told you before. Even hunters use magic if it helps on a job. There are all kinds of healers and protectors around the world that use it." He waved his hands lightly, careful to keep his muscles loose. "It's not whether you have it or not that makes it evil. It's whether you _use_ it for bad or not."

Piper seemed to consider, and felt quite a bit lighter after both Dean and Sam's pep-talks for the day, but when she looked over at Dean, his own thoughts didn't seem to be in the words. She narrowed her eyes, and elbowed him lightly.

"If that's so, why do you seem as unsure as I am?"

Dean pursed his lips, and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "It's a lot of things," he sighed. "I mean, hunters go after witches for a reason, right? That amount of power is really tempting, and you start to think you can do anything. You can magic away a cold, or win a cooking contest without trying, or…" He paused, and looked down, rubbing his eyes. "Or play the lottery and get rich."

Piper pursed her lips. "Phoebe probably didn't mean for that to happen."

"But what about when we get _control_ of these powers, huh?" Dean countered. "What about when she figures out how to _make_ herself have a premonition? What if she starts to use them for her own personal gain? And even if they aren't evil, we still don't know how we got this kind of power. It's nothing I've ever seen before and dad and Bobby aren't returning my calls, and…and even if magic itself isn't bad, I don't want to owe my soul to someone…I don't want you guys to deal with that either."

Piper made a face, leaning slightly so their arms brushed against each other. "And?" she prodded, knowing that there was still further into the issue to go.

Dean let out a sort of annoyed breath. "And, it's how you use your powers," Dean repeated. "My powers, of course are the only one of all of ours that can _really_ hurt someone. It's like having a gun on me all the time, only I can't put on the safety, and I don't know when my hand is on the trigger or not. Someone that can't handle a gun shouldn't have one."

"But you're learning to control it," Piper tried.

"Not learning fast enough," Dean grumbled. "I have to be back at work on Monday, and I still don't know what I'm doing."

"Oh," Piper muttered. There were a few beats, but then she spoke again. "Then why are you down here?"

Dean looked over at her questioningly, and she sat back up straight.

"I mean, why are you down here and not trying to get a hold on it?" she elaborated, starting to stand back up. "I'm still freaking out about this all as much as you are. I nearly exposed us all, you nearly blew up my place of employment, and like you said, we don't know where it came from…but right now, I'm wondering if that matters. We have these powers now one way or the other, and it's not going to get any better unless we try and _make it _better." She took a sort of staggered breath. "I can't keep living terrified of what's going to happen…and neither can you."

A sort of pleasantly surprised look came to Dean's face. It wasn't like Piper was stupid, or any less willful than any of her siblings or cousins, but it wasn't usual that she faced her fears head on and determined. Especially not on such quick notice.

Dean leaned forward. "What made you decide this?" he asked, smiling just a little.

Piper shook her head. "Everyone keeps telling me it's going to be okay," she said, shrugging. "Maybe if I start saying it too, it'll work." She laughed at the comment, and it made Dean smile even more. "C'mon, finish your sandwich and we can help each other figure out how to control it."

A flat out grin popped up on Dean's face, and he grabbed his plate before following her back into the main part of the house, just in time for the front door to open.

"Piper?"

Piper raised an eyebrow and looked down the hallway only to see Prue running through the entry way with an older lady behind her. "Prue?" she asked questioningly.

Prue let out a sigh of relief. "Thank god you're home," she said, before turning to Britney. "Brit, why don't you go sit down at the table?" She pointed, and the elderly lady walked into the sitting room, having a seat.

Both Piper and Dean watched her go, Dean still with a hand his sandwich. "Um, who's that?" he asked, sounding concerned.

Prue put her hands on her temples and walked back and forth for a few moments. "This is going to sound crazy, I mean even I think it sounds crazy, but I think that's Britney."

Piper's eyes went wide, and she looked in on the old woman in the other room. "Britney Reynolds? Britney from high school Britney?" she questioned. "Come on Prue, Phoebe and I saw her like, two days ago. That can't be-"

"Except that it can," Prue interrupted. "Look, she's got this tattoo on her hand, of an angel and I know it's hers. I know it's Britney."

"It can't be," Piper said, but Dean held out a hand.

"Trust me, it can," he said, his voice lowering seriously. "It's not common, but there are things out there that will siphon years off your life."

"Things like what?" Prue asked, sounding desperate. Dean started to shrug, but Piper cut her off.

"Prue, how can you be sure?"

Prue sighed. "I asked her questions," she answered, "Things that only Britney would know, she may be senile but it was enough to convince me. Even more, on the way home I called Max. He hasn't seen or heard from her since Thursday night."

"Shit," Dean grumbled, dropping his sandwich on the nearest available surface and thinking about what weapons he would need to get from his trunk.

Piper immediately started for the stairs, though. "We need to check the book, I think I saw something in-"

She was interrupted by a clunking sound from the entry room, and the three of them turned around to see Britney collapsed on the floor.

"Oh god," Prue choked, immediately running back. She slid to her knees next to her friend, putting a hand in front of her face to make sure she was still breathing before noticing a napkin clutched in her hand. A look of terror wiped across her face as she read it and Dean slid to the floor on Britney's other side.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

"She saw this," Prue said, holding the napkin up for him to read. Dean raised an eyebrow, but Piper, who was hovering nearby, gasped.

Dean's concern immediately grew. "What? What is it?" he asked, looking back at the address.

"That's where Phoebe is."

(-:-)

On the other side of town, Phoebe was pulling up to a warehouse near the bay. It was dim, and a little creepy, but as she wasn't a professional model, she doubted anything was out of the ordinary. She parked near the entrance where Stephan's van was, and started to get out of the car with her new dress in a garment bag over her arm.

She smiled as she walked up to the warehouse door, and started to knock. "Stefan?" she called through the metal door. "It's me, Phoebe."

There was no response, so she knocked again, but when her knuckles connected with the metal, a premonition surged into her head. For a few moments, she saw herself in Stefan's studio, tied to a table surrounded by candles. Screaming. Then she saw a wicked looking man, his skin practically dripping off of his face with wrinkles, and with long stringy hair. He was saying something, and then his eyes began glowing.

And that was where it ended. Phoebe gasped, pulling away from the door, and immediately ran back to Piper's Jeep. She was moving to get the keys into the ignition when something grabbed her from the back seat.

She tried to scream, but she already knew it was too late.

(-:-)

Sam was sitting on his bed with the book when everything started happening. He had taken the book away from Piper obviously because it wasn't helping the mood she had been in, but after yesterday's premonition, he had begun combing through the book to see if there was anything else about his powers, or about the people he saw in his visions. Especially the man with the yellow eyes.

So far, he wasn't making much headway, but that didn't seem to matter for the day, because before he could get past the picture of a demon named Belthazor, Piper, Prue and Dean burst through the door.

"Sam, let me see the book," Piper said as she walked over to his bed and plopped down purposefully.

He raised an eyebrow, but straightened out from where he was sitting to hand it to her. "Why? What's going on?"

"Some bastard turned my friend Britney into an old lady and now he's got Phoebe," Prue said sharply. Dean was looking through Sam's closet, where they had stored a tiny part of the Impala's arsenal, just in case.

Sam's eyes went wide. "Woah, seriously?"

"Yeah," Piper said shortly, flipping through the pages only to sigh. "I know I saw something in here…" she started to growl.

Without even asking, Sam slid the book back into his lap and turned further forward in it. "Here," he said, having mentally marked the page when he had been flipping through.

"Thank you Sam the research monkey," Dean said brightly as he moved back across the room, dropping a duffle bag he had found on the ground. "What do we got?"

"It says that we're dealing with a warlock named Javna," Piper read. "He feeds one week out of every year, stealing the life force from the young using the evil eye to sustain eternal youth."

"That's got to be what happened to Britney," Prue said.

"Alright, then how do we gank him?"

Prue looked over Piper's shoulder. "It says there's the hand of Fantima," Prue said. "It was used by some prophet centuries ago to banish Javna back to wherever the hell he came from." Piper flipped the page to the indicated spell. "But it says the power of three will make it permanent…what the hell does that mean?"

Sam looked up at her. "Haven't you looked at the book at all?" he asked, mildly concerned since it was kind of the second or third page in the book.

Prue looked at him, her eyes widening to tell him that this so wasn't the time to lecture her on research, and Piper sighed.

"It's this prophesy that Phoebe thinks we're a part of. One of our ancestors was a witch named Melinda Warren, who declared that there would one day be the most powerful generation of witches in her family, and that they would be called the charmed ones."

"Except it's not a whole generation," Sam corrected. "It's supposed to be three sisters that have immense power, especially when using their magic together in certain spells. There are beings that no one has been able to beat because they aren't powerful enough, but Grams seemed to think that the Charmed ones could do it when they turned up. There are notes on power of three spells all through the book."

Dean swore. "Shit, so this is gonna need Phoebe to work?"

Sam nodded, and scrambled to find a notebook and a pen. "As long as she can read when we find her, we can fix this," he confirmed, scribbling down the spell on the paper.

Piper looked for the other things they would need for the spell, and almost without missing a beat, everyone ran out to the drive way and piled into the Impala, hoping that it wouldn't be too late when they got to Phoebe.

(-:-)

The police station was bustling when Andy finally got back after lunch. Morris had paged him about a break in the case, and even if interrupted his date, Andy was anxious to figure out what had happened to all the women who had disappeared.

"What've we got?" he asked, walking up to where Morris was looking at images from and ATM camera.

"Look at this," his partner said, showing him the images. "ATM caught the first victim."

Andy took the pictures, glancing at the picture of the pretty girl with a dark haired man next to her side. "And she's leaving with that photographer, Stefan…"

"That was the last place she was seen before she disappeared. Is he on the suspect list?"

Putting down the pictures, Andy moved to call in the cavalry. Looked like they had a photographer to bust. "Just moved to the top."

Morris chuckled, and moved to get his jacket before they headed out the door. "God bless ATMs…"

(-:-)

The Impala slid to a stop in front of the warehouse and almost immediately, Piper and Prue bolted out of the car. They ran up to the Jeep while Dean parked and Sam looked around for any signs of Phoebe.

"Do you see anything?" Prue asked, glancing inside the jeep just to make sure Phoebe wasn't in there.

"No," Piper sighed before rounding on Dean and Sam. "You guys?"

"Nothing happened outside," Dean said, walking towards the door and tossing Sam a shotgun. He himself had a pistol in his hand, not eager to test out his powers on another warlock. He started to fiddle with the door knob just as they heard a scream. Immediately, they all looked urgent and ran inside.

The warehouse was dark except for a candle-lit circle in the center of the room where Phoebe was laying on an altar. Her hands were tied down, and she was screaming as Stefan, otherwise known as Javna, hovered over her, eyes glowing.

"Hey!" Dean yelled, holding up his gun while Prue waved her arm and flung Javna across the room. Sam and Piper ran to Phoebe, working her wrists and ankles from the bonds while Dean and Prue kept their eyes on Javna.

"Thank god you guys," Phoebe breathed as she sat up. "Let's get out of here-"

Sam cut her off. "No, we don't have a lot of time," he said, starting to fumble through his pockets. He pulled out a mirror and the piece of paper he had written the spell on. He shoved them into Phoebe's hands before running off. "Prue, hurry up," he said as he took a stance next to Dean and aimed the gun in his hand at Javna.

As Javna started to stand back up, he grimaced at the boys standing between him and the girl he had been trying to attack. Prue slowly walked back to her sisters, never taking her eyes off of Javna. Piper handed the mirror to Prue, starting to read the spell as Javna began getting closer.

"Evil eyes look unto thee, may they soon extinguished be, bend they will to the power of three…"

Javna surged forward, making a roar of fury. Dean shot at him, though it did little to slow him down, which was probably for the best. He had to keep him looking at the girls if this would work, after all.

"…Eye of earth, evil and accursed. Evil eyes look unto thee, may they soon extinguished be, bend they will to the power of three, eye of earth, evil and accursed."

As the last word was uttered, Javna's eyes started glowing, and the light hit the mirror in Prue's hand. It bounced back and hit his own eyes. There was another roar as the light spread through his body and he burst into a cloud of dust.

Dean and Sam looked at the pile of ash now on the floor.

Phoebe seemed to consider saying something, but suddenly they heard sirens down the street. Dean swore. "Shit, Sammy, ditch the gun under the altar."

The girls looked a little confused as Dean tucked his pistol in the back of his jeans, hiding it under his jacket, before starting to herd them to the door. Sam took a few seconds to smudge any fingerprints on the shotgun before he tossed it under the table Phoebe had been tied to. Then, they all ran for the door.

They got out to the Jeep just in time for the cops to pull up, and of course Andy was the one to get out of the front car. "Prue? What are you doing here?" he demanded as Morris and the other officers ran inside.

"Ah, we were trying to get the jeep started," Prue said, pointing at the car they were standing next to while Dean went and leaned against the impala.

"Phoebe called, and said she was having car troubles," Piper added.

"Stefan was going to take pictures of me," Phoebe said to explain her own presence here.

Andy seemed to sigh in aggravation. "Do you have any idea how lucky you are? This guy is a stalker."

Morris walked back out of the building. "No sign of him inside, but his car is here so he might still be around."

Andy looked around, and then at Prue and her family members suspiciously. "Excuse me…" he muttered, before reaching into the jeep and turning the key. It started immediately.

Prue seemed to panic a little, but Dean grinned. "See, told you I could fix it," he boasted, as if the entire time they had been there, he had been working on Phoebe's car.

Andy still didn't look convinced, but Phoebe moved to jump in the jeep. "Maybe we should go…" she said.

Piper and Phoebe jumped into the Jeep, while Dean and Sam slid into the Impala. For a few moments, Prue and Andy just looked at each other, because Prue knew that Andy was catching onto her odd behavior.

"See you, Andy," she said quietly, before walking to join the boys in the Impala.

Andy just waved, trying to figure out what she was hiding as they drove away from the crime scene.

(-:-)

Later that day, Phoebe was wearing one of Piper's dresses again as she walked through Quake. Piper had mostly cleared up the entire mess about the oven exploding. An inspector had come in earlier and determined that there was no leak, and that the oven must have just been faulty. The kitchen was back running with one oven short, and the restaurant was full of customers again.

At the bar, the TV was playing the nights winning lottery numbers, and she was excitedly holding up her ticket to see if the numbers matched. As each of the little ping-pong balls got another number on them, she got more excited. Each of the numbers matched. "I won!" she squealed to herself excitedly, knowing that she'd both helped that elderly couple and that she would be able to keep her new dress.

Yet, as she looked down at her ticket, suddenly the numbers faded away.

She stared at it with wide eyes for a moment, but then she remembered what Dean and Prue had been telling her. _You aren't supposed to use your powers for personal gain_.

She didn't know how or why the numbers had disappeared, but she sort of understood that it was for the best. She frowned a little and started to stand up. Alright, she had helped the elderly couple, but now she would have to return the dress. She smiled a bit, guessing that was good enough.

As she walked down the bar, she was surprised to see the woman Stefan had been with the afternoon before, the pretty girl with the red hair.

"Hey, how are you?" she asked, concerned about whether she remembered anything about Javna.

However, the girl just looked at her like she was crazy, not knowing at all who she was. To save face, Phoebe just kept walking to join Prue, Piper, Dean and Sam at a table.

"Do you know that girl?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I almost was that girl," Phoebe explained. "She was one of Stefan's victims. Obviously, she doesn't remember."

"Lucky her," Dean commented, taking a sip of his coke.

But Phoebe shook her head. "No, lucky _me_," she corrected. "I need to be more careful."

Everyone looked over at her in surprise. Prue looked the most amused. "Excuse me, did I just hear it? Did she actually admit to doing something wrong?"

"That's what I heard," Piper followed up.

Phoebe just rolled her eyes. "Frame it, it's not going to happen again," she joked, before looking at them all. "But, I do get bragging rights, because I was right. We helped those girls today. Our powers _are_ good." She looked at Piper and smiled especially wide. "And we _are_ the charmed ones!"

Piper rolled her eyes, remembering how Phoebe had told her as much last week when they had received their powers. Piper hadn't listened, and Dean hadn't wanted to even hear about it.

Dean shook his head. "What does that even mean, anyway?" he asked, not having read the passage himself. "Charmed? Are you just really powerful or…or what?"

"That's what the book seemed to suggest," Sam said, shrugging. "The only witches in centuries powerful enough to take out some of the worst demons and monsters out there. It's apparently why so many warlocks are going to be coming after you. If they can get their hands on your kind of power, they could rule the world."

Piper twisted her mouth into a frown, and looked at the table. "Well, here's to the power of three," she toasted, said, raising her glass, "whether we like it or not."

Prue winced a little, not fond of hearing it in those terms, but raised her glass. Phoebe followed suit, looking considerably less distressed than her sisters.

For a second, Dean and Sam just glanced at each other, knowing the moment had kind of been ruined by the feeling of dread and fear that was still permeating the household. So he shook his head and interrupted.

"Hey, none of that," he said pointedly, calling them out of their rather disappointing toast. "You don't toast to things you don't care about."

Sam smiled a little. "Dean's right," he said laughing a little. "Besides, you guys are the only power-of-three, so it doesn't include me or Dean. Whether we're charmed or not, we're going to be helping you the entire way."

The comment made Piper laugh. "And we can't have that, can we," she said, before looking up thoughtfully. She smiled at Dean. _You don't toast to things you don't care about. _

"Alright, then, to family…"

"To family," Prue reprised, smiling this time as she raised her glass. "Whether we're part of some twist of destiny or not." That comment seemed to go through them all, because Sam was right. Charmed or not, warlocks or demons, even if they were going to face the apocalypse, Sam was right. They were going to stick together.

Dean and Sam raised their glasses. Phoebe was the last, nudging Sam with an elbow as she raised hers. "To family, whether we have magic or not," she said finally.

Sam felt a sinking in his stomach as their glasses clinked together.

(-:-)

_A brown haired girl smiled as she glanced around the tables at a department store, picking out a new top for class, thinking it was just the right shade of pink._

_Pushing himself just a bit further, the boy outstripped the other ROTC boys on the track, making it past the end line before any of them._

_With tears in her eyes, the blonde walked away from her family's pristine white house, everything she could take with her in a backpack._

_A man with yellow eyes appeared, walking through the black and curiously peering into Sam's eyes. "Again with the visions," he said, sounding frustrated. "This is happening way too soon…" He waved his hand_.

Sam slammed up in bed, breathing hard from the dream he had. Yellow eyes. The blonde girl. The ROTC kid and the brunette cheerleader. They were all becoming familiar to him. But he knew that these visions were not happening the way they should. Not the way people said it was supposed to, and not the way Phoebe's happened.

He pressed his palms into his eyes, feeling tired and worn out from the vision.

What was going on?


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Alright, so he's the third chapter, which is the first one that I've written without a script. This is mostly because I couldn't come up with a way for Victor to encourage Dean's story arc (I did keep that episode in, I just moved it to slot 5). I tried to give it more of a 'Supernatural' feel than previous chapters, so there's not really a happy ending.

This chapter has guest stars: Bobby (because I just couldn't leave him until episode 16), Rex, Hannah, Alan (because I needed Prue to have another coworker), and Laurie (You get serious points if you can recognize him just from this chapter)

Episodes 4 and 5 are already finished and will be up as soon as I read through them a few times and/or get them beta'd.

(-:-)

It was dark outside the mall as Jenae strolled to her car, shopping bags in both hands. It had been a good night, and she couldn't wait to get to school the next morning to show off the blouse she had bought.

The parking garage was brightly lit enough that she wasn't too worried about her safety. After all, they always warned you about the dim ones, the ones that if you walked ahead, you wouldn't see an attacker hiding under your car. For the most part, she could see everything, though, so she doubted something could get her.

What she didn't know, though, was that you didn't have to be right next to someone for them to attack you.

Jenae didn't notice at first, but with each step, something began to feel wrong with her legs. She made a face, pausing for a second to balance, and take stock of it. As she stilled, her knees began to ache, her shoulders and torso feeling too heavy. Not knowing what was wrong, she kept walking.

After a few more moments, though, a shock ran through her calf, as if the bones in her leg were splintering. She staggered, letting out a quiet whimper.

She stepped again to catch up with her other leg, and a full on crack shot through it.

She fell to the ground with a shriek, and she called out into the garage. "Is anyone there? Anyone? Please!"

She positioned her arms to push herself at least into a sitting position, but the second her palms began pressing against the asphalt, there was a rush of excruciating pain on the sides of her arms.

With a scream, she tried to move again, but when she looked over to her arms, she saw bone, sticking out of her arms from the wrist to the elbow. The joint had been ripped apart and blood was starting to run everywhere.

(-:-)

On the other side of San Francisco, a hooded figure chanted as they mixed the blood and herbs. The figure couldn't hear the screams of the girl they were killing, but then again, they didn't care.

(-:-)

When Dean pulled up to the garage the next morning, he tried to keep thoughts of explosions and blood out of his head. It was his third day back at work since he had received his magical powers, and since he had nearly blown off a co-worker's head.

He'd taken the majority of the last week off, trying to learn to control his powers so he wouldn't be so much of a danger. He hadn't made much progress, but there was only so much time you could take off before the boss got suspicious. Thankfully, the past two days had been calm enough that he hadn't had to worry about accidentally making something explode.

At the same time, he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He parked the Impala in back with the other guys' cars, and walked inside to the familiar noises of cars and mechanical work.

A few of the guys hollered at him in greeting as he ran up to the punch card system, clocking in before walking to the office to figure out what he was supposed to do for the day.

When he came back out, he walked over to the car that had been brought in that morning, and wasn't surprised to see his co-worker Eric sitting there, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Eric had been out since Dean got back, but for legitimate reasons. His wife had had a baby on Sunday night, and he'd taken some sick days to stay at the hospital with her. Half the shop had been waiting for him to get back to hear the good news, and settle on the shop-wide betting pool.

"Boy?" Dean asked, grinning a little.

The other man nodded, pulling a picture excitedly from his wallet. Dean didn't make fun of him, knowing that some of the other guys had already taken care of that for him. "Yup, Reese Wallace, six pounds eight ounces," he chattered, excitedly, showing the picture off proudly, while there was the slightest chuckled from behind them.

Dean rolled his eyes when another guy, Jayme, walked up, and slung an arm over Dean's shoulder. "You know what that means don't ya?"

"I lost the bet?"

Jayme grinned. "Yup."

Eric rolled his eyes. "Let up, Jayme," He said, sounding annoyed. "You've been bragging since you got in. It's time to stop already."

"Hey, please allow me to bask in the glory for a few more minutes," Jayme protested, before leaning back against the car Dean was supposed to be working on while Dean lifted up the hood.

Eric just rolled his eyes again, before looking over at Dean. "So hey, meant to ask you when you got back, why were you out last week?"

Mentally, Dean swore. He'd been through this almost all of Monday morning with the guys that had been there. Dean was a pretty new employee, so it wasn't like he had a ton of sick days to burn, but he was adamant that it hadn't been safe for him to be out last week. Frankly, he still didn't think it was safe to be in the shop _today_, but it wasn't like he had a choice.

"I was sick," he said, not elaborating as he leaned over the car to start playing with the fuse box.

Eric raised an eyebrow. "Sick sick, or just-"

"Trust me, Eric, you really don't wanna know," he grumbled. The excuse he had given to the boss was explosive diarrhea. It had shut him up, but the other guys didn't need to hear the nasty details.

Eric seemed to take his word for it. Jayme just shook his head. "Whatever, man," he grumbled, before walking back off to do whatever he should have been doing.

A little huff came out of Dean's nostrils as he kept pecking at the fuses with a testing instrument, trying to drown out the sounds of the shop around him so he could concentrate.

There was a bang suddenly on the other side of the shop.

Dean had to force himself to stay still. His first instinct was to spin around, to run towards the sound and make sure everything was okay, to make sure there wasn't a monster or a gun involved. Since he had gotten his powers, though, all he could think about when he tried to execute were images of trucks blowing to smithereens whenever he got jumpy or tense.

He gripped the sides of the car tightly, forcing himself to not jump around lest his powers flare up. Piper had suggested some stupid breathing exercise, so for a few moments, he tried that.

When that started to feel stupid three seconds later, he slowly let himself stand up straight, keeping his arms stiffly at his sides as he turned to look.

Another mechanic had knocked a tool box off of a shelf.

He grumbled a few swear words about getting worked up over nothing before turning back to the car.

(-:-)

Sam wasn't entirely surprised when he got to school and his friend Brady started checking him over for signs of trauma. For the past two weeks, Sam had been coming to school with massive headaches. Brady kept telling him to go to the doctor; Sam insisted that he was okay.

Granted, Sam did have a headache. It had slowly started to build since he had woken up, just like any other morning because of his newfound abilities. Just like his brother and cousins, he had gotten magic powers a little more than two weeks ago, but he had been keeping it to himself. Prue had been freaking out over finding a new job, and Piper and Dean had only recently started to stop stressing over their own powers. He had decided he shouldn't distress them with the news that he had powers too.

But that didn't mean his powers weren't a problem. They had been giving him headaches so bad that he could hardly get through the day, and plaguing his sleep with nightmares. They were starting to scare him, and he had wanted to let his family know every day. But now that they were two weeks into their time as being witches, he just wasn't sure how he would tell them.

Considering he had gotten through the past three days without incident (read: keeling over on a sidewalk, which was an incident Prue and Dean didn't know about either), Brady didn't ask about his health this morning. He had something much more important to discuss.

"Did you hear what happened?"

Sam raised an eyebrow, falling in next to Brady so that he could get to his locker. "What do you mean?"

"Dude, something happened to Jenae Smith last night. Whole school's been talking about it."

Hearing the name, Sam wasn't too surprised to hear that everyone knew. Jenae was one of the most popular girls in school, as well as one of the meanest. Sam couldn't feel too sorry about whatever had happened, but something didn't feel right about the conversation.

"What happened?" he asked.

"She was found dead in a parking garage."

Sam practically froze in his shoes.

"What?!"

"I'm serious," Brady repeated. "The cops were apparently swarming at the mall last night. Some guy found her body, and like, half of her bones were jutting out of her skin and everything. Even her ribs were broken so that they were sticking out of her chest like a Venus fly trap."

Sam rolled his eyes and as they got to his locker, he rounded on Brady. "Alright, no _way_ you know that for sure. The cops wouldn't have released pictures of that _ever_."

Brady put his hands up. "I'm just repeating what I heard," he said in his defense. "But even if the thing about the bones isn't true, something _did_ happen. A cop came in to talk to the principal, and Amber and Anya are biting peoples' heads off over it."

"Are you talking about what happened to Jenae?"

They both looked down to the locker caddy-cornered to Sam's, where a girl in a bright purple, flower-pattered shirt was tucking a book into her bag. She was shorter than both of them, and a little bulky, and she was wearing thick rimmed, black glasses.

"Aha!" Brady said in triumph as the girl stood up, and he pointed at her as if her statement proved what he had been saying. "I told you something happened!"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Hey, Tina," he greeted the girl. "And yeah, did what Brady said happened really…" he trailed off, doubting he would get any real information from high school kids.

He had never really participated in the interrogation portion of a monster-hunt with his brother and dad, but he knew that it was too soon for any real information to have gotten out. The news couldn't have covered it yet, and the police wouldn't have had time to complete their investigation. Any first hand information, from a student who _could_ have been there, had probably been lost in a sea of gossip.

Tina shrugged a little. "I don't know," she said. "I've been hearing about it all morning, though. And I really doubt her harpies would be letting people talk about it unless it was true…"

Brady snorted a little at the word _harpies_, and down the hall they heard the tell-tell voices of two of the school's biggest bitches terrorizing the other students.

With a shake of his head, Sam turned to his locker and twisted the dial so he could get in. "You'd think they would be a bit more solemn about it," he said, not impressed by the girls.

"Oh, but what better way to mourn for their best friend than to continue practicing her favorite activity?" Brady commented.

Sam snorted, only for a sharp voice to call him away from his locker.

"You think this is funny?!"

Brady, Tina, and Sam all turned away from the lockers to see two girls standing next to them. Sam inwardly wanted to groan, because that saying of speaking of the devil was true. Amber and Anya had appeared.

The one who had spoken was Amber, the taller of the two with long, curly brown hair. Anya was a petite blonde, but, according to the rumors, she could be violent and vicious.

Being that Sam was a guy, he was not one of the girls' usual targets, and he had always been thankful for that, for their sakes if not his. After all, even if he wasn't as avid of a hunter as his father and brother were, they had still taught him how to fight. He didn't want to have to hit a normal teenage girl the same way he would hit a werewolf.

"What's funny?" he countered, trying to play it dumb so they would just scream at him and walk away.

Amber made a noise of disgust in the back of her throat. "You are such insensitive jerks!" she spat. "My best friend is dead and all you can do is joke!"

"So rude," Anya followed up, sounding just as whiny as Amber did.

Sam put up his hands. "We weren't even talking about Jenae."

Anya didn't look convinced. "Liar!" she blurted. "All of you are over here gabbing about it just like the rest of the school. Jenae _so_ deserves more respect than this!""

"If you want to respect her stop yelling at us and talk to a teacher about having a memorial service," Tina said, her voice low, but not sounding angry. She just wanted them to go away.

Sam saw Anya stop, and actually think about the idea for a second. Amber on the other hand just rounded on Tina. "Oh, like you really mean that," she hissed. "You-you're happy Jen is dead. You hated her, you ugly cow!"

Tina looked upset by the comment. "Wha-no!" she said, cowering just a bit.

"Liar!" Amber blurted, reaching out and grabbing Tina's backpack. "You were always arguing with her in gym-"

Sam's hand darted out, grabbing Amber's wrist hard. "Hey! Leave her alone!" he said flatly. "She didn't do anything!"

Amber's mouth opened again to snarl something at him, but he just put more pressure on her wrist. He didn't want to hurt anyone, but Tina looked terrified, and Sam had been raised better to let his friends get picked on. After having his fingers dig into her wrist for long enough, Amber eventually squeaked, and dropped Tina's bag. Sam let go.

Amber grabbed her wrist with the other hand, and glared daggers at him. "You jerks!" she blurted before scrambling off with Anya at her heels.

Sam sighed, and picked up Tina's bag before handing it back to her.

The three of them stared for a moment. Brady eventually whistled, and muttered something along the lines of _bitches be crazy._ Sam just watched them go, and slowly realized that his headache was getting worse.

(-:-)

Prue walked into Buckland's Auction House far more confidently than she had the last time she had been there. The Friday previously, she had a less than stellar interview. Even so, she had gotten a call back and they sounded anxious to have her come in and demonstrate her skills.

The receptionist quickly recognized her, and shuffled her into the back where her future boss was waiting. Buckland Auction house was under new management, and was receiving some much needed renovations. What was going to be the main auction room had tarps hanging all over the place, with ladders and paint cans scattered around. She was surprised that they were doing this in a construction zone and not in her boss' office, but she wasn't going to say anything.

Rex Buckland, the new owner of the auction house and the man that had interviewed her, was standing in the middle of the room, waiting. He smiled at her in greeting.

"Prue, thank you for coming back."

"Well, thanks for having me back," Prue replied, "although I must admit I didn't expect it."

"I told you I was interested and I am," Rex responded, turning so that he was looking at a few podiums sitting in the middle of the room. Each of them had an art piece sitting on it. "But first, I'd like to test your expertise, if you don't mind. See how good you really are." He gestured behind them and a woman with curly red hair walked up with a sour expression on her face. "This is Hannah Webster, one of our assistant specialists," he introduced. "This is Prue Halliwell."

Prue held out a hand to shake with the woman. "Nice to meet you," she said, though Hannah didn't even respond with a smile.

Rex directed them both to a portrait on his left. "Please," he said to Prue. "Tell us about this piece."

Prue glanced at it for a moment, looking over it appraisingly. She definitely recognized the style, could even place the name and the artist. Yet, something wasn't quite right, and she almost smiled.

"Well, Madonna of the Meadow," she started, "Giovanni Bellini, 16th century. Fabulous piece. Worth three, four million dollars easily if it wasn't a copy."

"What makes you think it's a copy?" asked Hanna, raising an eyebrow.

Looking back to the painting, she waved a hand. "Too well preserved, no yellowing. Besides, the frame support is in pine, and Italian Painters used poplar back then."

"Huh," Rex responded, sounding impressed before moving to the next piece. "What about this one?"

This one was a sculpture.

"Degas," she answered quickly. "Actually this one was the only sculpture he exhibited himself…"

Hannah was rolling her eyes at Prue as she shifted her hips and knocked into a ladder nearby. A paint can spilled over directly above Prue and Rex blurted, "Watch out!"

Prue looked up, and pushed her hands up quickly, feeling the power run through her to block the paint. Her magic stopped the paint before it hit her, directing it to splatter all over the floor instead.

"Are you okay?" Rex asked in concern.

Prue pursed her lips, wondering if they suspected anything as she looked up and caught his eyes. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm okay…" she stammered to him.

"You sure? I'm sorry I can't believe that happened."

Prue just shook her head. "It's okay."

He still didn't look too convinced. "Well, uh, I really don't know what to say, except you're hired, if you still want the job."

Prue's face lit up. "Are you serious?"

Rex smiled. "Can you start tomorrow?"

"Yeah, absolutely."

"Terrific. It's done then. We can sort out the details when you come in. In the meantime, welcome aboard."

Prue just grinned, hoisting her bag back onto her shoulder. "Thanks," she said before walking back for the front of the office. "Bye."

As she walked away, Hannah approached Rex from where she was still standing next to the ladder.

Rex looked pleased as Prue walked away. "Well, what do you think?" he prompted her.

Hannah looked after Prue for a moment, not seeming to be impressed. "I think she's either the luckiest woman alive, or she's a witch."

(-:-)

Dean was still moving cautiously after half the day had passed, but he was feeling a bit more confident than he had after the toolbox had dropped earlier. He had gotten through a car back firing twice, and had even caught a grease rag Jayme threw at him without losing his control over his powers. It was an improvement, and right now, that was all he was looking for.

He had even relaxed about it to the point he had gotten lost in the engine in front of him. Something was making a racket when the car turned on and he was determined to find it. Dean didn't even hear it when Eric had asked if anyone wanted him to grab them lunch while he ran to the nearest taco joint.

So with everything going perfect, he, of course, should have known that something would go terribly wrong before the day was over.

His head was still buried in the guts of the car when there was a crash just feet away from the vehicle he was on. Reacting instead of calming himself, he jumped to attention and away from his car. Luckily, his hands stayed clenched around the tools in his hands, and no explosions went off as he surveyed the situation.

The same guy who had dropped the tool box earlier that morning had just driven a car into one of the lifts, which of course was loaded and had a Subaru now rocking precariously on the top. The guy driving started yelling at the machine like _it_ was at fault while the other guys in the shop just started yelling that he was an idiot.

Dean yelled something along the same lines as he ran forward and took appraisal of the lift. Nothing seemed to be broken yet, but one of the supports had been dented, leaving the platform at the top unbalanced and slowly allowing the car to slide off. He didn't know if it could be fixed, but for three seconds, he crouched down, looking carefully at the lift to see if there was anything he could do before the car fell.

Apparently, the answer to that question was _no_, because before he could answer it himself, he heard Jayme screaming at him, and then felt the man tackle him from the slide.

There was the sound of more metal crunching while he and Jayme slid across the smooth concrete, out of the way of the car as it toppled off of the lift. He felt more than saw Jayme rolling to cover his head while he instead shot up stalk straight to see what was happening. His arms flew out to help him get balance back just as the Subaru from the lift hit the engine of the car that had been driven into it.

Power surged through his arms as he raised his arms to cover his face, and then there were two bangs. One from the cars hitting each other, and one from Dean's magic flying out and hitting the falling car.

Heat blasted across the shop when the gas tank of one of the cars lit up like a roman candle. The lift crumbled. The other guys started screaming.

Almost shockingly, Dean didn't feel the heat on his arms that were scraped and a little raw from the blast. He smelled the smoke coming from the rest of the shops as other chemicals were already catching fire. All he really focused on was the fact that he had done this.

Again.

_Son of a bitch._

Immediately he started scrambling to get the other guys out, specifically Jayme. Everyone else was running for the exits he could see, dodging the smoke while Dean looked for his friend. He wasn't too far away, curled up on himself a few feet from Dean with a car door laying across his torso. He seemed unconscious, which Dean wasn't entirely sure could be defined as good or bad.

"Jayme!" He shouted, starting to tug at the metal on top of him. "Jayme, talk to me!"

The other man just laid there, and Dean started to swear again. He dragged the door off of him, and by the time he managed to lug Jayme onto his shoulders, the smoke was almost too thick to see through.

He could hardly see the light from the garage doors as he started crawling out. He heard more and more shouting, and there were sirens when he stumbled out into the sunlight. Immediately the other workers were swarming around him, pulling Jayme onto their own shoulders and trying to help Dean as he staggered far enough away that he could collapse.

He looked back at the building breathlessly, watching smoke pouring from the building and flames roar up as they reached other cars and other gas tanks. His fault, all of it.

His head fell into his hands, and he felt something wet. A drop of red started running down his hand. Apparently he was wounded. That was just perfect too.

Just when things were getting better.

(-:-)

Sam's first few classes hadn't been too bad. He'd gotten through math and biology without the headache hurting too much, but sitting in history was awful. His head was now pounding, the back of his head felt swollen and heavy.

The teacher was droning on about something or another, but Sam had given up on taking notes five minutes ago. He could see the students around him lolling their heads, trying not to fall asleep. The two kids in front of him though were passing a note.

Every now and then their hands would pass the paper between them, and now the receiver was giggling before looking behind her, towards the back of the room. Sam didn't look to see what they were looking at, knowing that that was where Anya sat. The gossip mill was still running, he saw, and he guessed that Jennae's death was making people a little bolder at making fun of her friends now.

He could practically _feel_ the radiance of Anya's bitch face, though, after the note-passer giggled at her, and it only seemed to make Sam's headache worse.

Sam put his face in his hands, trying to will the headache to go away. Not that it would work; he had tried before.

And then something hit him in the back of the head, and the pain spiked.

For the second time while he was awake, a premonition shot through his head. He saw Anya and himself at the manor. Anya was on the floor with blood soaking through her shirt, her mouth open wide in a scream. Sam was trying to stop the blood, but it obviously wasn't working.

In a split second, the image was gone. His headache had stopped, and the teacher was yelling at someone.

"Anya, I will not have anyone throwing things in my class!"

Sam opened his eyes, and looked around.

People were staring at him.

Oh god, had he yelped when the premonition hit?

He blinked, and looked around. There was a dense ball of paper on the desk behind him, directly between him and Anya. She looked absolutely unrepentant, even though she had missed her targets, the note passers. Actually, she was sneering at Sam like he was a big baby for getting her caught.

Sam picked up the paper and looked back ahead, processing what had just happened with wide eyes. Jenae had died a gruesome death, and Anya was going to be next.

(-:-)

Quake was bustling around as Piper walked back over to the bar to take her break. Phoebe was sitting there with Sam, looking over his shoulder as he worked on something for school.

She had thought it was odd when he had come here after school, seeing as it wasn't normal for him to hang out there. He usually just went home, or he went to Brady's house after school. Today, though, he had shown up an hour and a half after class had ended, and he kept glancing around like he was watching someone. His eyes kept flitting to a booth where two girls were sitting, groaning about something or another, but Piper didn't ask.

"I'm telling you, you need to fix that sentence," Phoebe grumbled, pointing at a line on his notebook. Sam just rolled his eyes.

"Will you stop? I know how to write a rough draft."

"It's a bad sentence," Phoebe chimed.

"Hey, I'm the one in high school. I think I know what I'm doing."

"Come on, Sam, let me help," Phoebe whined. "English was always my best subject.

"When you were actually at school," Piper joked as she walked around the bar. "Sam, why are you doing that here anyway? It'd be a lot easier to work on at home."

Sam made a face. "I know, it's just…" he began, before trailing off, frowning. He seemed to be coming up with the words right as Prue walked up to the bar with Dean in tow.

Everyone looked at him in concern as he sat down, looking irritated and upset. There were bandages covering both of his forearms, and there was a cut on his forehead that had butterfly sutures keeping it closed.

"Dean-are you-"

"Don't finish that sentence," he cut Piper off, his tone dangerous. There was a beat of aggravated silence as he put his elbows on the bar and dropped his head into his hands. "No, I am not okay."

Sam closed his notebook sharply, looking his brother over. "What happened?"

Prue's wince told him that he shouldn't have asked. An hour or two after her interview, Dean had called her from the hospital and said he had blown up the auto-shop. He was mostly okay,with just a few cuts and scrapes, but Jayme had a concussion, and the fire department was still at the shop from what his boss had told him. Anyone who knew him could tell that Dean was furious with himself, feeling like it was entirely his fault.

"I happened. Guess what I managed to blow up today? The shop. As in the entire building. With people and eighteen cars inside."

"Oh no," Piper gasped. "What…is-is everyone okay?"

"Everyone is alive." The statement didn't seem to bring any consolation to Dean, though. "Jayme's got a concussion, and a few guys had to be checked over for smoke inhalation, but aside from that they're good. But damn it the shop…"

Phoebe cut him off. "Dean, it's not your fault."

"The hell it's not-"

"No, she's right," Prue said, interrupting. "Jayme said that a lift was damaged and nearly dropped a car on you. You can't blame yourself for reacting to that."

Dean still swore. "It's not an excuse!" he said, adamant that it shouldn't have happened. He had been in high stress before, but this was the first time he had accidentally lit a building on fire. "There are twelve guys out of work now because of me…"

Sam swallowed hard, and tried to tune out the argument. This was the kind of thing he was still hiding his powers because of. Piper looked skittish just because of Dean's part of the story, and Phoebe was being entirely discounted because her power wasn't dangerous. If Dean emoted like normal people, he would have been curling up in the Impala and crying his eyes out because of all the stress he was dealing with. They didn't need another reason to be freaking out.

They didn't need to know about his powers just yet.

Thinking about his powers, though, he glimpsed back across the restaurant where Amber and Anya were sitting at a table. They were far younger than the normal clientele, but they came from wealthy families. They had made plans to come here for dinner, and Sam had decided to keep an eye on Anya. Something bad was going to happen, and even if he couldn't help, he could at least be there.

At the moment, though, Anya seemed to be fine. She was chatting and sipping on her soda like any other teenage girl. Aside from the sad look on her face, you might not even have suspected one of her best friends had died.

Amber, on the other hand, had been getting twitchy since she walked into the restaurant, and she kept pulling out a hand mirror. For a few minutes, she would poke at her face, as if she had a smudge or something on it. She still hadn't put it away from the last time she had gotten it out, and Anya was looking concerned.

He looked back to the conversation with the girls and Dean. Dean still looked miserable. Piper still looked skittish. Phoebe and Prue were still trying to convince Dean it wasn't his fault.

"…Mr. Logan spent years trying to buy that place guys…"

"And he has insurance. It'll be fine-"

"But it's not!"

"Dean, there's a learning curve," Phoebe said in his defense. "You can't blame yourself for every little-"

And then there was a scream.

Everyone turned rapidly towards the table where Amber and Anya were sitting. Anya looked terrified and disgusted. Amber looked…

Amber looked awful.

In the thirty seconds since Sam had looked away, she had started picking at her face frantically, like she couldn't stop. Skin had started to peel off in layers. Chunks of flesh were missing from her cheeks and forehead. Blood was oozing from what was supposed to be her face, and already her wrists were starting to drip from how hard she was scratching.

She was muttering to herself about how her skin was so ugly.

"Amber-Amber what are you doing?" Anya squeaked, tripping over herself to get out of her chair, and to move to Amber's side to grab her hands and make her stop. Amber just smacked her away, and stood up herself to go to the bathroom for a better mirror.

Wait staff were gaping at the girl that was breaking all kinds of health codes, looking in disgust at the flesh she had left behind at her table, and the blood stains that followed. Piper stood up desperately to stop her.

She stammered as she got in front of her, grabbing her wrists despite the blood. "Excuse me-honey, you can't-"

Amber smacked Piper away viciously before she put a hand to her neck, and got wide-eyed as she felt at it. Sam gaped, and he looked at Dean, who seemed to be thinking the same thing.

They both jumped out of their seats just as Amber started scratching again, and blood started pouring down her neck.

"God-I can't believe no one told me how awful I look…" she was muttering to herself hysterically. Her fingers dug into her skin as if she didn't even feel it, just as Dean got close enough, he grabbed her wrists.

"Hey!" she yelled, frantically trying to get her hands back, but Dean could feel there wasn't much fight in her. Blood was draining from her at an impossible rate, soaking her clothes and starting to spatter Dean's.

"Someone call an ambulance!" Piper shouted as a literal stream of blood, thick and dark started to pour from her neck.

Amber kept struggling, but slowly, she started to fall to the ground as she bled out.

The entire restaurant could only stare in horror.

Anya was crying in her chair by the time the ambulance got there, and all of the Halliwells felt sick.

(-:-)

None of the Halliwells were in a great move when they got back to the manor.

The four of them had gotten out of the restaurant the second that the police got their names. Piper had to stay behind and monitor the police while they took care of the body and the clean up. No one was even sure if it was a police matter, but it was certainly bizarre, and this soon after her best friend had died, the cops wanted to be sure.

"What the hell was that?" Phoebe asked, her voice shaking.

"Witches," Dean replied, acid on his tongue. He was pacing behind them, and waving his blood-covered hands. He was pretty messy from holding Amber, but he couldn't even think of changing right now. "That is the only thing I have ever known that could…that _would_ do that. And in the middle of a restaurant? Whoever this bitch is, she's sloppy as all hell and that's makes this shit even worse…"

"Witches?" Prue repeated, her eyes going wide. "Like…our kind of witches or-"

Sam cut her off, knowing that what Dean said was true. "No, not witches like us," he said, keeping his head in his hands. "Witches like...like the ones we hunt."

Phoebe put her hands on her hips and faced Dean. "Alright, well how are they different?"

Dean kept pacing, holding his hands in front of him to try not to wave them and accidentally blow something up. "Alright, for one, they usually aren't _born_ with their powers," he said. "They promise their souls to demons in exchange for power. The bad ones do, at least, and they usually only end up using it for selfish reasons. As long as it doesn't hurt anyone, it isn't our problem. Girls' ripping their faces off in the middle of a restaurant obviously is."

"Aside from the demons, they use spells, a lot like the ones in the book," Sam followed up. "Anything major requires a blood sacrifice on an altar. God it's probably just a stupid kid…"

"Which only makes it worse, because we do not need to be killing teenagers in our town," Dean grumbled, still pacing.

This made both Phoebe and Prue look at them in extreme alarm. The entire room seemed to go silent until Phoebe managed to choke out a response. "What?"

Sam kept his head down; Dean looked back at them, obviously unsettled by the concept, but less so than they were. They had not gotten around to telling the girls about all of the hunting trips they had been on with their father, so the idea of killing monsters, no matter what they looked like, hadn't come up just yet.

Dean swallowed, not sure how to broach this with them. "A lot of the time, witches end up being teenagers," he said slowly. "They just found a book of magic and decided to try it. They get in too deep, and hunters have to pull them out. Sometimes they take the hint after the first warning. But when it's this bad: when they've killed people…" he trailed off, looking at the ground. "Sometimes a warning isn't enough."

"But-but this witch could be Sammy's age," Prue said, her voice squeaking. "We don't even know who it would be, or if she even meant for this to happen."

Sam blanched. "Suspect pool is pretty wide," he grumbled. "Amber terrorizes…terrorized half the kids at school. She was even picking on me and Brady this morning."

Phoebe looked even more aghast. "So this…this other witch could just be protecting herself from bullies?" she said. "Dean-we…I don't know if killing-"

"Pheebs, she's already killed someone," said Dean darkly, dragging a hand down his face in misery. "She's no better than Jeremy, or Javna."

"No," Phoebe blurted. "Jeremy and Javna were-were murderers! They killed people for power. This kid is trying to protect herself; we don't even know if she'll do it again…"

Sam fought the urge to groan before calling back out. "She's done it before and she'll do it again," he blurted from his seat.

Everyone in the room turned to stare at him. Prue slid into a chair on the other side of the table from him. "Why do you say that?"

He hesitantly looked up. "Last night one of Amber's friends was found mutilated in a parking garage," he said. "People at school were talking about it all morning. Someone said that her bones were sticking out of her skin when they found her."

Prue looked down at the table, closing her eyes as if she had just heard the worst news of her life.

Phoebe visibly started to choke up. "But…but that doesn't mean."

"Trust me Phoebe, there's going to be another," Sam sighed, his head falling onto the table. "I don't know if there will be another afterwards, but the girl Amber was having dinner with is next."

A heavy silence fell over all of them, but a few moments later, Dean looked over at him with a look of confusion on his face. "Why are you so sure?"

Sam shook his head, trying to fight the tightness in his throat at the comment. "I just know, okay?"

But Prue looked suspicious too. "Sam, you need to tell us okay," she said. "This is serious."

Dean walked behind her so that the both of them could look directly at him, and between the two, Sam didn't know what to do. He wanted to lie to them, to tell them that it was just a guess, but that would mean they might not believe him about Anya. The truth was going to make them _so _pissed with him.

He nervously licked his lips. "Er…I might have…" he fumbled with the words, trying to find the easiest way to put it. "I might have had a premonition."

When he looked back at them, Dean was blinking rapidly, trying to respond. Prue's eyes were wide, and her mouth was open with shock. He couldn't see what Phoebe was doing, but he assumed that she was staring at her just as aghast as they were.

"You…had a premonition?" Prue eventually breathed. "Wha-when? _Since_ when?"

Sam looked back at the table, swallowing guiltily. "Well, the premonition about Anya was in History today," he started. "She hit me in the head with a paper ball, and just…bam, I see her on the floor being gutted like a trout." He laughed nervously. "But I might have had another one maybe…maybe two weeks ago."

"_What_?"

And _that_ was the sound of Dean getting pissed at him.

"You've had powers as long as we have?" he growled.

"You didn't tell us?" added Prue. "Sam! I can't believe you!"

"It's not exactly like your powers okay!" Sam said in his defense. "It's been…weird."

"All the more reason you should have let us know," Prue chastised. "Sammy you can't keep that kind of a secret."

"I didn't want to worry you, alright?" he groaned. "Things have been chaotic enough with your powers, you didn't need to know that mine came with complimentary migraines and freaky-ass dreams-"

"Wait, and this is with the power of premonition?" Phoebe asked, sounding confused. Premonition was, of course, Phoebe's power, and she hardly even felt anything when she had her premonitions. "That hasn't happened to me…"

"I told you," Sam replied. "It's been weird. But that's not what-"

"No," Dean interrupted, going back to holding his arms pensively in front of him so he didn't start flinging them around in anger. "No, you can't say that's not what we're talking about right now, because we damn well should have talked about this when it started! Sam what do you even think would have come from not telling us? Huh? We've been worried sick about how you're handling everything or if something was wrong because you were the only one without powers. Would have been nice to know…"

"Dean," Sam tried to interrupt.

But Dean just whirled back around on him, and didn't even seem to notice when his hands unclasped. His mouth opened to say something about how he wasn't done talking, but when he put his hands up, there was a rush of magic and a bang.

Sam and Phoebe, who were standing on the same side of the table, ducked. Prue whirled around at Dean as if trying to warn him, but by that time, he was just staring at the spot on the wall. Right behind where Sam's head had been, a sconce had been blown to bits.

They all looked at him pensively as he stared at it. He didn't say a word, eventually looking down at Sam, torn between miserably guilty and still angry that he had lied. After a few moments he just stormed out of the dining room.

Prue looked at Sam almost accusingly. "We're going to have a long talk tomorrow," she growled. "Go upstairs. You have school in the morning and apparently we have to track down a witch…"

At that, she got up and rushed after Dean.

Sam eventually staggered out of his chair, looking after the both of them. Phoebe comfortingly moved to his side. "I…I didn't mean for this…" he muttered.

Phoebe pursed her lips a little, and comfortingly put an arm around his shoulders before starting to walk to the stairs. "_I_ believe you…"

(-:-)

Chasing Dean led Prue out into the driveway, where she promptly found him with his forehead resting on the hood of his car. He probably would have kicked up some dirt when he got out here, pounded his hands on the trunk to try and get out some frustration with what had just happened. Right now, though, passively standing there against his metallic safety blanket was all he could do.

To the girls, the Impala was just a car. It was their Uncle John's car, of course, and now Dean's car, but to Dean it was as much _home_ as the manor was. To him, the Impala was playing around with Sam while they drove out to Bobby's for the summer. It was his dad ruffling his hair when he and Sam took a pocket knife to the rear dashboard. It was where he stashed the guns and holy water that he intended to keep his family safe with, and where John and Grams had fussed at each other when he learned to drive. It was where he had been sitting when they dropped Piper off at Senior Prom, and where Phoebe had lost her front teeth when John took them to the zoo after Mary died. It was also the only stable thing in his life he had for the year and a half he spent hunting with his dad.

The manor might have been home, but the Impala had all of Dean's favorite memories of his family. And right now, with the world kicking his ass every which way, he needed the comfort that brought him.

Prue quietly approached the vehicle, and leant up against it, just waiting until Dean finally looked up to acknowledge her presence. It took a while with them both sitting there in the near darkness of night, but he eventually spoke to her.

"Why would he lie to us?"

Prue shrugged, even though he wasn't looking. "He might not have known what else to do," she said. "His powers are confusing him, and all of us were freaking out so much that he didn't think it was a big deal."

"Until he realized that he had to tell us eventually," Dean grumbled. "Yeah. Great."

He was still obviously upset at a myriad of things. His little brother keeping secrets was just the outlet, but he was still upset about destroying the shop earlier, and the idea of having to take out the teenager that was just protecting herself from bullies, and from nearly blowing off Sam's head.

They wouldn't be able to talk about Sam or Dean's powers until the dust settled, so she went with the least dangerous topic. "Whatever is going on with Sam, we still have a witch to deal with," Prue said. "I don't like the idea of killing a girl Sam goes to school with any more than Phoebe does, but we need to find her. With any luck, maybe she just doesn't know what she's doing."

"I doubt it," Dean grumbled. "Once is an accident. Twice is a suspicious coincidence. Three times is a pattern with intent. We aren't going to be able to talk her out of it."

"But we can try," Prue said. "Hunting monsters is your gig. What do we do?"

Dean finally looked back up, and rubbed his eyes as the gears turned in his head. "Well, I'll make some calls, see if Phoebe can get a position at Sam's school as a substitute teacher tomorrow. She can look at the students with Sam to see if they can tell who the witch is. I'll get into school records to see if there are any incidents worth reporting."

"And when we have a suspect?"

Dean looked at her, and shrugged a little. "We try to get her to stop, and do whatever it takes to make sure she doesn't kill again."

(-:-)

Thursday morning came bright and early for all of them for once. Prue left for her new job at the same time everyone else left to go to Sam's school.

Dean had stayed up for several hours the night before making phone calls and getting jobs set up the next morning. He informed Piper of the situation (and what happened to the sconce in her dining room) when she got home, and she had been enlisted to help him get into the school records the next day.

Phoebe's picture had been snuck into a file that said she was a substitute teacher for Sam's English class, so that she and Sam could each check out the different students at school and try to figure out who it might be.

And this was how it came to pass that the four of them were sitting in the Impala the next morning and slowly pulling through the morning traffic.

"Guys, I don't know how to teach."

Phoebe, despite the fact that she was normally fearless, was a little jumpy about this. She might have been a wild child, but she wasn't outright deceitful. Today she was going to have to lie to everyone about who she was, and she would have to try and convince people that she was a teacher. Dean had said it wasn't that hard, but she was still distressed. In the back of her mind, she was still a little worried about how she might have to help kill one of the students she was teaching today.

"English was your best subject, remember," Sam tried to joke where he was sitting next to her, but no one laughed.

In the front seat, Piper and Dean were mostly quiet. Piper, despite having agreed to help wasn't incredibly enthusiastic about getting school records like Dean wanted. Dean was just in general still sulking from everything that had happened the day before, and was a little tired from having stayed up all night arranging things.

"Just do whatever the lesson plan the teacher left," Dean grumbled in response to Phoebe. "She probably just wants you to play a movie or something. All you need to do is press play and listen to them gossip about who hated the wicked witches the most."

The Impala inched another car-space forward. "But what if she didn't?" Phoebe protested. "What if we're having a class discussion? I didn't read any of the books…"

"It's gonna be nothing like that," Sam assured her as the car finally inched far enough into the parking lot that Dean could pull into the student parking spaces. He took one of the empty spots near the back of the lot and parked.

"It'll be fine, Pheebs," assured Dean in a dull tone. Sam and Phoebe climbed out of the back seat.

Piper waved. "Have fun hunting witches," she called. Phoebe turned and made a face at them while Sam just shook his head and kept walking.

For a few more moments, Dean and Piper just watched them walk. But Piper had to ask.

"How did you manage to fake her teaching certificate?"

Dean grinned a little. "Just called in a favor," he said, keeping the smile on his face.

Being that it was the first smile in two days, Piper didn't question it.

(-:-)

Sam and Phoebe split on different paths the second they made it into the building. Phoebe needed to go to the classroom she would be in for the day, and Sam was still planning to meet up with Brady like he always did. Everyone there that morning was chattering even louder than normal as he made his way to his locker. He wasn't surprised when he found Brady waiting for him.

Almost as soon as he got there, Brady opened his mouth, but Sam put up a hand to silence it. "Lemme guess, Amber got her face nommed off by a crazy supermodel last night and the entire school is talking about it."

Brady looked flabbergasted. "Dude! How did you know?" he exclaimed, only for Sam to roll his eyes.

"Because unlike you, I was actually there, and trust me, it's nothing gossip worthy. Amber clawed at her skin until she bled to death and it was disgusting. Seriously, it's not something that anyone should be talking about."

"Buzz kill," Brady scoffed, leaning up against the locker behind him while Sam turned the lock on his own. Before Brady could open his mouth further to explain, there was a burst of laughter at the other end of the hallway, and the two of them looked to see Anya scrambling to get away from a group of girls. Her face was bright red and frustrated, tears were threatening to spill down her cheeks. She didn't look nearly as polished as she usually did, wearing a dull gray sweater on top of grimy jeans, and absolutely no makeup.

"You're such a jerk for talking about my friends that way!" one of the girls picking on her teased in a nasally voice.

"Not so tough now that Jenae and Amber are gone are you?" another yelled after her.

Sam could have sworn he heard Anya muffle a sob as she rushed by them.

He looked down the hall, a little shocked that this was how high school kids reacted to the death of another student. He got that Amber, Jenae and Anya weren't nice people, but this girl had just lost both of her best friends, and they were making it into a joke.

Jeez people sucked.

(-:-)

Prue didn't actually wait for the receptionist to wave her in as she walked into Buckland's for the third time. There were a few people milling about, and she assumed that she just needed to find Rex or Hannah to point her to her new office.

Looking around the office spaces for the first time, Prue realized that this was probably the only part of the auction house that wasn't under construction. It was two hallways that met in a T, with doors lining each end. A few of them had windows that peered inside, a few were open. The one at the end of the hall that read _Rex Buckland_ was neither. She walked up, considering knocking when there was a voice behind her.

"Hey, you the new girl?"

Prue looked around slowly, only to see two men peeking out of their offices in the stem of the T. One of them was only a bit taller than she was in her four-inch heels, and had long-ish gold-brown hair. The other was certainly at least six foot, with dark brown hair gelled back neatly.

She hadn't seen either of them in the office when she had come in for her interview. She had assumed that everyone was new.

"Excuse me?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

The one that had spoken before, the shorter one, walked entirely out of his office. "The new specialist," he elaborated. "Heard we were replacing the dick that used to fill that position." He shot a look at the other man. "Pun intended."

The other man rolled his eyes. "Grow up will you?" he chastised before looking back to Prue. "Hi, so _are_ you the new specialist?"

Hesitantly, Prue nodded. "Yes, actually," she said, holding out her hand professionally. "I'm Prue Halliwell."

The man smiled, and firmly shook her hand. "Alan Stanton," he replied. "Accounting Manager."

Prue smiled, and nodded as if she were impressed before she then turned to the shorter man, who smiled fiendishly. "Lawrence Hiddleston," he said brightly. "Art appraiser. Call me Laurie."

With a little laugh, Prue replied, "It's nice to meet you two. Really, I can't say I got this warm of a greeting at my last job."

"Yeah, I'd expect that working at the museum you get a lot of sticks in the mud," Laurie replied, only for Alan to roll his eyes.

"That could also be said about a guy who fawns over Medieval Madonnas."

"Oh come on, those things are hilarious! Alien-headed Mary? What's not to love?"

The entire exchange brought an amused look back to Prue's face, and before she could get too engrossed, there was a tap on her shoulder, and they all turned to see Rex standing next to her. He seemed to be similarly amused.

"I see you met the stooges," he joked as he walked over.

Laurie made a face at the boss. "A wise guy, eh?" he muttered, doing a pretty good Curly impression.

Alan rolled his eyes again. "Hey, Rex," he said. "Just chatting with our new coworker.

"I can see that," Rex said. "But I'll have to interrupt you, as we have business to discuss."

"Right," Prue said. She looked back at Laurie and Allen, saying "It was nice meeting you," as Rex led her to his office.

As the door closed, Alan and Laurie just stood there for a moment. "She seems nice," Alan commented.

"We don't pay people to be nice," said a sharp voice from behind them.

They both turned around, and seemed mildly chagrinned to see Hannah standing behind them. "We pay people to get their work done, like you two should be doing now."

Laurie smirked, despite the sour face she was making. "I don't know," he said. "There's something to be said when your coworkers actually smile a bit."

Hannah narrowed her eyes and sneered at him a little. "Get back to work," she growled, before walking away to her own office.

Laurie chuckled a bit as he walked back to his office. "Whatever you say, Hell-Bitch."

Still in the middle of their conversation, Alan looked between the two doors that had just closed, and reflected on how strange his co-workers were.

(-:-)

It turned out that Dean was wrong about being able to watch a movie in Ms. Darkholm's English class. Instead, when Phoebe got there, she had to give out worksheets, which she thought would be just as easy. The first few classes of the day proved that it was not.

Apparently, _worksheets_ in student-language meant _talk at the loudest volume you can manage while ignoring the paper entirely_. She had nearly needed to yell to calm down her first period class, and it hadn't gotten any better as the day went on.

She was quite enthused to see Sam walk in for third period, but he actually looked upset about being there. It wasn't until Anya walked in, students jeering behind her, that Phoebe understood why.

Phoebe had been hearing the gossip all morning, and while she hadn't gotten any useful information about a witch, she _had_ remembered how teenagers could be real jerks.

When the bell rang, she walked up to the front of the room and smiled after writing the name Dean had told her to use while working today.

"Good morning everyone, I'm Miss Waters and I'm subbing for Ms. Darkholm today."

None of the students seemed particularly keen on being as friendly as she was being.

She coughed, and picked up a stack of worksheets from Ms. Darkholm's desk. "I have a worksheet for you to do on Great Expectations. Please work quietly and turn it into me when you're done."

She hadn't even managed to pass it out to the first row when the kids at the back of the room started to talk as loudly as they possibly could. Someone was bitching about another class, and a few girls were giggling over a boy band, but without fail, Jenae and Amber's names came up.

"So dude, what I told you earlier wasn't true."

"I knew that. No way you did it in the bathroom with Carla-"

"Alright, that _so_ happened, but I was talking about what happened to Amber. A supermodel didn't actually eat her face."

Phoebe looked up, and actually rolled her eyes at how idiotic some people could be. She glanced over at the boys that were talking. Both of them looked like stoners, with half grown, scraggly beards. One had a number of piercings lining his ears.

Two seats in front of them, Anya looked like she was trying not to cry, and was trying to hide her face in her pink purse.

"Aww man," the one without piercings replied to his friend. "That's lame."

"No-no the truth is stranger than fiction!" insisted piercings. "She did it herself! She literally scratched off her face in the middle of a restaurant."

"No way!"

"Yeah! Sick, right?!"

Anya turned around, but instead of the bitchy tone she had used when talking to Sam and his friends the day before, she actually sounded legitimately upset. "Guys, can you please stop talking about it?" she pleaded. "It isn't funny."

Piercings looked back at her and laughed a little. "Oh, and what are you gonna do if we keep talking?" he taunted. "Cry at us?"

Anya looked like she just might do that. Everyone turned to the center of the room to listen.

"Just-just stop, alright!" Anya insisted.

Piercings made a few blubbering noises. "St-st-stop!" he mocked. The rest of the class laughed, except Sam and the girl next to him, who just looked over at the boy in annoyance.

Phoebe stood up and called him out. "Hey," she insisted. "She's right, that's enough. This is a very real, very intense situation. You shouldn't be joking when two of your classmates died."

"Well then what should we do? Walk through the halls weeping in anguish?" Piercings scoffed. "Those bitches had it coming!"

Sam looked like he was about to say otherwise, but Anya cut him off.

"Hey!" she shouted, rounding on the boys and flinging her purse off the desk. "Don't talk about them that way! They didn't deserve to die!"

"The fuck they didn't. You and they both made half the kids in school miserable. Last fall you stole everyone's clothes from the locker room during gym and dumped it all over the school. Just last week you completely destroyed Anton's science project and you trashed Dana's car in the parking lot. As far as I'm concerned, they deserved the bloody deaths they got, and I hope the same damn thing happens to you."

Anya's already tear-filled eyes started to over flow, and she ran from the room. Sam gritted his teeth and ran out of the room after her while Phoebe just looked at the class in shock.

"Being a dick makes you just as bad as they are," Sam's friend, Tina, chastised from her desk.

Piercings just laughed. "Come on Tina, you know you wanted them gone just as bad as the rest of us."

"That doesn't mean you should make fun of her."

"Hey, just because you can't stand up for yourself doesn't-"

"That's enough!" Phoebe cut him off again. "What's your name and what the hell do you have against these girls?"

The boy looked at her as if he hadn't even known she was in the room in the first place. "Jeez, calm down-"

"No, I won't," Phoebe insisted. "You're mocking the violent deaths of two girls that were your age. I don't care what they did to you, that doesn't mean you celebrate because of it. You're coming with me to the office, right now."

He slid out of his seat as if this was just a minor annoyance. "But teach-"

"Now!"

(-:-)

Anya didn't even make it out of the hall before she collapsed and started bawling, her face pressed into a locker. Following her, Sam felt a bit like he was intruding, but he knew he had to talk to her. He scratched the back of his neck as he walked up awkwardly.

"Hey…ah…you ok-"

"Do you-you really have to come and make f-fun of me right no-ow-oow?" Anya sobbed.

A sort of annoyed sigh came out of Sam's throat. "I'm not here to make fun of you. I wanted to ask if you were alright."

"Yeah right…"

"No, really," he insisted. "I was at the restaurant last night. It was pretty awful. No one should be joking about it."

Anya, still sobbing, slowly turned around. She sniffed as she looked at him. "Oh…well…thanks…" she muttered.

Sam pursed his lips, and didn't say anything as she fell back against the lockers, covering her mouth.

"I…it's Sam right?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yeah. I'm sorry about everything that's happening. It's all kind of crazy."

A choking noise came out of Anya's throat. "Crazy's one way to say it," she gasped. "I still don't know what the hell happened last night. Amber just…she just started scratching. I…I tried to get her to stop and…and what happened to Jenae…" She choked again. "What could do that? And now stupid Michael wants me to be next?"

Sam winced a little, and looked at the ground. It was cruel what he was about to say, but if he did, maybe he could help keep her safe.

"Er…Anya…"

She seemed to get where this was going, and frowned. "Wha…what is it?"

"The thing is, I think I know what did happen, as crazy as it might sound," he sighed. "And…you really might be next."

Her eyes widened with panic. "Wha-why…why would you say that?!" she demanded, starting to cry again, but Sam surged forwards, and put his hands on her arms.

"Hey!" he said, quieting her down. "I'm not trying to be mean, okay. I want to help! Look, me and my brother…" he paused, remembering that he and Dean weren't alone in it anymore, and nearly sighed, "…and my cousins might be able to stop the person that killed Jenae and Amber, and we think they're going after you too."

Anya's face pinched up, fighting the tears that were about to start pouring down her face again. "And…and why are you telling me?"

"Because you might be able to help us figure out who it is."

Amber seemed to pause, but nodded, and wiped her eyes. She pursed her lips a little, and took in a sharp breath.

Now that she was calm, Sam took a step back. "We can talk about it later, okay," he said, motioning for her to go back to class. The two of them walked together, and found that Phoebe had left the classroom. Everyone was talking so loudly that only Tina noticed that they had walked back in.

Anya let out a little wail, though. Someone had stolen her purse while she was gone.

(-:-)

"So I think I have our witch."

Prue blinked a little in shock as she dug through her new desk, and held the phone closer to her ear. "Really, that quick?" she asked.

"Well, it isn't a sure thing," Phoebe elaborated over the phone line. Back at the school, she was on her lunch break. "But based on the things that jerk said in class, I'm pretty sure."

Prue fumbled with the materials on her desk, trying to get it set up the way she wanted now that she had the job. Her new office certainly wasn't like the one she had at the museum with its dozens of bookshelves and binders on museum materials. Instead it was sparse, and painted white. There was a desk with a computer, and a small bookshelf near the door, but aside from that it was empty, ready for whatever she deemed she needed. There was a window letting in the sunlight. She had easily decided that she liked this office more.

"What'd he do?"

"He pretty much just declared that he Amber and Jenae deserved to be killed violently and that Anya deserved the same thing."

"That doesn't make it an admission of guilt, Phoebe…" Prue tried before there was a beep on her phone that said she had another call. "I need to put you on hold, give me a sec…" She took the phone away from her ear and punched a few buttons before putting it back up.

"Prue Halliwell speaking."

"Hey Prue."

Prue smiled a little. "Hey Andy. What's up?" she asked cheerfully, hearing her maybe-boyfriend's voice. Since getting her powers, Prue had been cautiously going out on dates with him. She liked him a lot, as a long term family friend and one of her best ex-boyfriends. At the same time, though, she had to be cautious about who she spent her time with, especially Andy. He was a cop, and if he figured out that she had lately been spending her time as a vigilante-witch-superhero, she doubted it would go over well.

Even so, the latest in their string of dates had been phenomenal. He'd taken her to dinner twice and been a complete gentleman. He reminded her how to have fun, and it made her wonder if things might just work out with him.

"Oh, just dealing with a case," Andy replied as if it were nothing big, which granted it might not have been. Not every cop got the big cases every day, and Prue knew for a fact that he wasn't working Jenae and Amber's case. "How about you?"

"I'm starting my new job," Prue said, putting an excited little chirp in her voice as she leaned back in her chair and surveyed the room. "They've just got me settling into my office right now, so it's nice…"

"Nothing too busy, then?"

Prue heard the tone in his voice and smiled. "Not really."

"So then you might have some time to squeeze in dinner tonight?"

Prue's eyes lit up, but then she nearly swore when she remembered the business about the witch they were after. "Actually, tonight doesn't work," she sighed. "I'd love to but we've got this thing with a friend of Sam's…"

"Oh," Andy sounded disappointed.

"But I might be able to make it tomorrow night," Prue said, as disappointed as Andy that tonight wouldn't work. "Would picking me up at Buckland's Auction House work for you?"

"That would work great," Andy encouraged. "I'll see you at five."

"Great, see you then," Prue pulled the phone back and switched the call back to Phoebe's line. "Hi. What was I saying?"

"You were saying that motive does not a murderer make."

"What?"

"What?"

Prue rolled her eyes. "Did you tell Piper and Dean about this guy?"

Phoebe nodded, even though Prue couldn't see it. "Yeah. Called Dean, they're going to see if they can get his records too when they get Amber and Jennae's." She paused, presumably to take a bite of whatever Piper had packed her for lunch. "You know if it's this guy, I don't even think I'll be upset if Dean has to gank him or whatever. This kid would totally deserve it."

Prue's eyes narrowed a little. "Come on, Phoebe, you don't mean that."

"You didn't see him in class. The jerk was brutal!"

"But he's still a kid," Prue returned, her voice stern.

There was a beat of silence before Phoebe sighed.

"You okay?" Prue asked.

"Yeah…it's just that you're right…" grumbled the younger sister. "I just…if we have to, I'm not going to be okay with finishing it either way, but…this guy. He just went after Anya like she was the spawn of the devil. That's not okay."

"Well, with any luck, it will be him," Prue said encouragingly.

"How will that be lucky? I thought you said we shouldn't be okay with killing him."

"Not killing him," Prue corrected. "But if it is, then you get to lecture him on morals and not killing other students."

(-:-)

It was a little later than Dean would have liked when Piper finally decided she was okay with breaking into the front office. They had been sitting in front of the school for four hours now, so it was certainly about time. They had a specific office targeted from what Sam had told them of the school counselors, and Phoebe had already called to give them a suspect.

Dean walked in through the front doors with Piper sneaking along behind him, obviously a little jumpy, which was all good for her. Her powers worked when she was nervous, after all, so it would be helpful.

They quietly strolled over to the double doors that opened to the office and Piper peered inside. There was one receptionist at a desk, and then there was a door that led back to the other offices.

"You ready?" questioned Dean as Piper looked back over at him and hesitantly nodded.

"Yeah…Yeah I'm good…" she said in a shaky voice. She looked back in the window and made the motion with her hands that usually froze things. She felt the power run through her fingers and everything, but the receptionist just kept flicking through papers like it was nothing.

"She's not freezing...Dean why is she not-"

"Piper, we're still in the hallway."

"What?"

"Your powers only work in the same room, remember. Just…open the door."

"Oh…right."

A little embarrassed, Piper opened the door as quietly as she could, and slipped a hand inside so that she could do it again. This time, though, the receptionist easily froze in her seat, and Dean and Piper snuck through. Peeking in through the next door, they saw that the hallway was empty, and that the counselor who's office they were going to had his door wide open.

The two of them hurried through the door, and as soon as they reached the office, she peeked in and froze its occupants. The counselor himself was sitting with a look of suffering in his office chair while he waved a manila folder around. A student wearing mostly black and several ear piercings seemed to be making jokes in the chair across from him. Piper closed the door behind her while Dean moved over to the filing cabinet.

He started pulling out drawers to see where the names were while Piper looked around nervously.

"Hurry up," Piper reminded, feeling uneasy when she looked at the kid with piercings. "I don't know how long they'll stay frozen."

"I know, I know…" Dean responded, grabbing at a file folder. "Here's Amber…" There was a beat as he looked in the next drawer down. "And here's Jenae…" He flipped through the other files, and tried to look back in the drawer at the top. "What was the kid's name that Phoebe wanted us to look at?"

"Michael Schmidt."

Dean's face pulled into a frown. "His file isn't here."

Piper's eyes bulged, but she didn't take her eyes off of the frozen counselor as she stammered back. "What?"

"It isn't here," Dean repeated, looking up, and looking over at her. But then Piper noticed something, and she quirked her head to the side while she stumbled forwards.

Dean watched her in confusion as she stalked around the boy with piercings and started looking at the counselor. "Piper…"

"I think this is him."

"What?"

She looked at the file folder the counselor had been waving around. "This…" she said, tugging it out of his hand cautiously. She looked at the name on the side and flipped it around so Dean could read. "This kid is Michael."

"Great," Dean said, smiling and taking the folder from her. "That's all we need then. We should book it before…"

But just as the last word was coming out of his mouth, Michael started to slowly tug out of his frozen state. Piper's eyes went wide, and she went stock still, despite how Dean started tugging at her arm. He tried to say that they should make a break for it, but then Michael was looking around in confusion.

"What the hell…" he grumbled, shaking off the feeling of sluggishness. The still frozen professor in front of him made him quirk an eyebrow, and when he looked around and saw Piper and Dean, he snapped out of his chair. "Dude! What the heck did you do?!"

"N-no-We didn't-" Piper started stammering while Dean started pushing her to the door.

"Just sit down and shut up kid," he said, trying to get out as quickly as possible.

Michael snorted. "Forget that," he grumbled, shoving past them to get to the door.

"Hey," Dean grumbled. "Get your ass back in there."

"Why would I listen to you? I've got some unholy hell to unleash on the bitch that put me in here…"

They watched him start to strut off, but Piper and Dean froze.

"That bitch being Anya?" Piper squeaked.

Michael shot back a thumbs up, not even looking back, and Dean didn't even have to see Piper's look of terror before he was racing after Michael.

Unluckily for him, Michael caught on quick, and he hardly even heard Dean's boots on the floor before he was sprinting for the exit. Neither of them looked back when the receptionist screamed at them, leaving Piper to apologize.

Michael took Dean on a chase around the front of the school, dodging around trees, jumping in front of cars. He dodged through an alley and knocked down trash cans like he had seen in movies, but Dean was better than that. Michael might have known how to run from cops and school authorities, but Dean had run after werewolves and Wendigos. The kid was nothing compared to that.

He was gaining ground when they wound up behind a convenience store. There were no cars, thankfully, and so when Michael wound up trapped between the dumpster and Dean, no one was around. Dean stood with his shoulders pushed back, looking intimidating when he started to tell the kid that he had some serious explaining to do.

But Michael wasn't done yet.

In a last ditch effort, Michael charged, and Dean didn't see it coming. His head hit him in the gut, throwing him back and his arms up. Power ran through his arms and hit the ground just behind Michael. The blast threw them three meters back. Dean heard Piper's voice yell his name.

By the time he could actually see her, he had scrambled to his feet. He tried to not focus on the scorch marks and battered asphalt behind him. He tried to focus on how Michael had run; how Michael was their witch.

That was kind of hard, though, when the kid looked like he was about to piss himself on the sidewalk. He hadn't even picked himself up, and was staring at the explosion point in terror.

"Wha-but-what just-"

Dean cut the babbling off. "You. What were you going to do to Anya?" he demanded.

Michael stared up at him with wide eyes. "What?" he choked. "I was…I was just gonna go to her house and spray paint her dad's car or something!"

Neither Dean or Piper looked convinced. "What about Jenae and Amber, then?" Piper asked.

"What? I didn't do anything to them!"

"Why don't I believe you?"

"I don't know?" Michael sputtered. "I swear I didn't do anything! Bitches deserved what happened, but I don't know why the hell you think it was me!"

Dean and Piper shared a look, and as the adrenaline started to wear off, Dean started to feel sick to his stomach. He didn't look back at the scorch mark behind him, and lightly kicked one of Michael's shoes. "Get out of here," he growled before stalking back toward the school.

Piper didn't spare a look at Michael as he ran off, but looked nervously at the new pothole in the asphalt nearby, and knew that this was only going to make things worse.

(-:-)

Phoebe was sorting through the things on Miss Darkholm's desk, getting ready for the end of school. The last bell had rung five minutes ago, and looking back and realized that she hadn't gotten anything done. It was the end of the day, and the student she had suspected had nothing to do with anything. None of the other students stood out at all. If the patterns from the last few days kept it up, another girl would be dead, and she hadn't helped anyone.

The thought made her feel melancholy, and she frowned as she stacked the papers for the teacher to go through the next day. She was about to grab her purse and head for the door when there was a shadow in the window, and she peered through to see Tina trying not to be seen.

Raising an eyebrow, Phoebe opened the door and peeked around it, catching Tina where she was hiding. "Tina?" she asked. "What are you doing here? Did you forget something earlier?"

The girl seemed to be a little scared, but she nodded, and hid her face. "Yes," she admitted, sounding almost embarrassed. "I lost a tube of lipstick. Could you let me look around for a bit?"

Phoebe smiled, and opened the door wider, letting her walk in. "Sure," she said. "I don't really have anywhere to be."

Tina smiled, and walked inside, starting to look through the rows of seats. Phoebe went back to the desk. When she looked over at Tina, she realized something: Tina wasn't wearing any make up at all, especially not lipstick.

Phoebe's brows furrowed a little, trying to think of why Tina would lie to her. "Uh, so you're friends with Sam?" she asked, standing up to take a closer look. Maybe she just wasn't seeing things right.

"Yeah," Tina replied, not looking back up as she bent down in the back of the room where she had been sitting earlier, where the book shelves were. "Not close friends, but friendly enough. Why do you ask?"

Phoebe walked up on the other side of the aisle just as Tina popped up smiling, holding up a navy tube of lipstick. "Found it!" she exclaimed. "Thank you Miss Waters."

"No problem," Phoebe began to say warily, though Tina had run out of the room too fast for her to hear it. She raised an eyebrow, and looked at the chair.

She had seemed like such a sweet girl earlier, but…

Phoebe knelt down, and glanced over the chair just checking to see if she had missed something when she saw a bright pink bag tucked between some of the textbooks on the bookshelf. Her brows furrowed further, because she knew that was Anya's bag, the one that had gone missing when Phoebe was taking Michael to the office.

Tugging it from where it was wedged, Phoebe stood back up, looking over it curiously. When both hands tightened on it, her eyes snapped closed as a premonition swam into her head.

There was a dark figure chanting over a bowl, a picture of three girls inside a book in front of her. The figure waved its arms, sprinkling something into the bowl before dropping in the tube of lipstick, and for a brief second, Phoebe saw her face.

Tina.

Phoebe gasped and nearly dropped the bag.

She scrambled around desks, nearly falling on her face more than once as she tried to get to the door. By the time she got to the hall, though, looking frantically in both directions, it was too late. Tina was already gone.

She barely remembered to grab her own purse and Anya's before running out to the parking lot.

(-:-)

Prue kind of expected for the entire family to be holed up when she got home. They'd been witch hunting all day, and they were only down to a few hours to find her. If she had to guess, they were starting to try the magic ways to find the witch. Phoebe and Piper would be debating still how to best intimidate them, and Sam would be keeping an eye on Anya.

She was almost right.

She just didn't anticipate that the witch had already been found, and that Dean had already broken out his arsenal.

And that was why when she got home, she felt her stomach drop when she saw the guns lined up across the table. There were only a few. Three of them were shotguns, while the ones he got out for he and Sam were the ones that were more precise rifles and pistols. She walked in while he was handing a crow bar over to Phoebe, who looked less than pleased.

Piper was hovering over Sam's shoulder as he clicked away on Phoebe's laptop. Anya was sitting on the couch uncomfortably.

"What's going on?" Prue asked, putting down her purse as she got a few steps further into the living room.

Dean looked over, and seemed to frown. "Phoebe found out who the witch is," he said grimly. "Sam is looking up her address."

"And the guns?"

"We can't go in without weapons."

Phoebe made a noise in the back of her throat. "Come on Dean, there's still a chance we can convince her to stop."

He picked a shotgun off of the table without even considering the suggestion, and walked over to hand it to Prue. For a second, the eldest cousin just held onto it with one hand. She wasn't even entirely sure how to hold the weapon. The idea of shooting it made her look up at Dean and shake a little. "Ah…Dean…I don't…"

Dean put a hand up to silence her. "I know. But until you do, you need something," he assured. "It's only loaded with rock salt, so it's nothing lethal. At the very most it'll distract her until I can get in and finish the job." He sounded calm enough, but, the way he said the last part was almost bitter.

She moved her hands on the gun, picking it up like she had seen in western movies, but it still felt awkward in her hands. It just wasn't right. "I don't even know how to hold it Dean," she insisted. "Can't I just use my powers for protection."

"We are not relying on our powers for this," Dean replied, pretending to laugh. This time the statement came out _entirely_ bitter, and after sharing a glance with Piper, she understood something else had happened.

An internal groan nearly made it out of Prue's throat, but she put the gun down and moved to stand behind Sam with Piper. "So who's the witch?"

Sam looked a little sad when he said the word _Tina_, and Prue recalled that she was actually a friend of his. Not a close friend, but someone that she had seen on parent-teacher night, and when Sam went to the movies.

Prue also looked at Anya. The blonde didn't seem to be fond of Tina, and she did look more than a little guilty.

"Why's she after you?" she decided to ask.

Anya sighed a little. "She was one of Jenae's favorite people to pick on," she said, not raising her head from the spot she was staring at on the floor. "Last week she spent an entire day laughing about Tina's weight. She's not even that fat. Jenae just liked picking on her. Yesterday Amber called her ugly."

She lowered her head, though. Prue narrowed her eyes. "And I guess there's more going back a few years," Prue guessed. "What did you do to her?"

Anya didn't respond, but Sam didn't give her the chance to answer. "Alright, I've got the address. Not too far away from here."

On the other side of the room, Dean was sliding his pistol into a thigh holster. "Great, let's go then."

"I still don't think we need the weapons," Phoebe said.

There was a pause, but Prue reluctantly had to agree with Dean. "Phoebe, she's not a witch like us. She's already killed twice, and she's not going to have any qualms about killing us to protect herself."

Phoebe still looked disappointed, but she started towards the door with the crowbar in hand. Prue picked the shotgun back up, and Dean grabbed a second gun to go with his pistol. He glanced back at Piper and Sam, who were going to stick around and take care of Anya if they could.

"Take care," Piper said nervously.

Dean tried to give her an assuring smile, but it did nothing of the sort as he followed Phoebe and Prue out the door.

Sam had been right about it not being far. The drive didn't take more than ten minutes, and when they pulled up to the house, the sun had just pulled over the horizon.

In the fading light, Tina's row house looked as peaceful as anything else on the block. There weren't any cars in the driveway, though, and from what they could tell every light in the house was turned off.

Phoebe looked out the side window nervously before looking up to Dean. "Okay," she muttered. "No one's home, I guess…"

But just in time, a dim light began shining from one of the top bedrooms. It glowed orange, and shadows started dancing over the window panes. Candle light.

"Or not," Dean said. "Parents must be out for the night."

"Is that good or bad?" Prue asked.

"Good for us, bad for her," Dean said, before turning off the car.

Prue was the first one to get out, and look contemplatively up at the window. She still hoped in the back of her mind that it was nothing. Maybe she just liked candles. Maybe she didn't think it was real.

The shadows on the other side of the window started thickening and swirling around. Prue could make out a hand. Then she could see the shadow of a knife.

"Guys look!" she blurted.

Phoebe looked up and gasped. Dean just swore.

"Son of a bitch," he growled before rushing for the front door.

Tina had started her third ritual.

(-:-)

The others hadn't even been gone fifteen minutes when Sam saw Anya start rubbing at her wrists. He raised an eyebrow, looking at her for a few moments. She started scratching at her chest after a moment, and at her neck, over her stomach and down her arms.

"What are you doing?" he asked when the staring started to feel really awkward.

Anya's eyes narrowed a little, and she pulled herself off of the couch to scratch at her back. "Something doesn't feel right," she said. "My skin is…it feels weird, like it's too small…It itches."

Sam's eyes widened a little. "Hey, don't scratch at it," he warned, moving over and grabbing her hands. "It could be whatever Tina is doing…"

Touching her wrists, she felt too warm. Her arms started shaking when she couldn't scratch.

"What would the point of a spell be that would make me feel itchy?" she protested.

"You scratch at yourself long enough and you'll bleed to death just like Amber," he said direly, only for Anya's eyes to widen.

(-:-)

It took them a few minutes, but Tina's front door eventually succumbed to Dean's lock picking skills, and the three Halliwells stormed to the staircase, hoping that they weren't already too late. Muffled chanting was already audible from this far away. At least it wasn't over yet.

They wasted no time getting through the door, all three barging in without checking to see what would be inside. They immediately saw her, though, on the center of the floor, kneeling on a rug. A rabbit was hanging on a rope from the ceiling fan, dripping blood into a big orange mixing bowl. A spell book lay in front of her knees as she dropped herbs into the bowl.

The most terrifying part of the girl's room wasn't the dead rabbit whose blood she had spilt, though. No. What freaked Dean out the most was that her walls were painted pink. A purple canopy hung over the white bed frame, and a patchwork quilt in bright pastels was laid out underneath it. The walls were covered in frames shaped like white flowers, holding pictures of friends from school. Sam and Brady were even in one or two. Even the altar she had set up was all on top of a purple rug shaped like a butterfly.

This girl was a witch, he understood. But this girl was also a stupid kid. A naïve little girl that had just had too much at school. He was really going to hate himself when this was over.

Tina snapped from her chanting and immediately looked shocked not quite knowing what to do. "Wha-what are you doing in my house?!" she shrieked at them.

"Stopping you from killing another innocent person," Prue said, holding up her hand threateningly. "Stop what you're doing now and we won't have to hurt you."

The girl scoffed, and for a split second she looked like she was going to stand, but then, she spat a word in some garbled ancient language, and the three of them flew against the wall before falling flat on their faces. Dean groaned a little, and scrambled to get his shotgun back. Prue was struggling to get up right, her gun clung sloppily to her chest.

"Innocent?" Tina said, her voice hysteric as she stood up. "Those innocent people have been making everyone's lives miserable! Do you know some of the things they've done at school?"

"We know that they've made things hard," Phoebe argued, her voice sad and understanding as she tried to stand up. The crowbar was still in her hand, yet she couldn't bring herself to try and swing it. "But this isn't the way to fix it! You can't keep hurting people!"

"The hell I can't!" Tina shouted before letting out another line of words in the dark magic. There was another force that dragged away from the wall this time, and while it sent the three Halliwells back to the floor, Dean and Prue's shotguns went flying across the room. One of them went off, but it didn't hit Tina. Phoebe's crowbar scuttled across the floor and under the bed harmlessly.

"We're serious!" Dean shouted, starting to pull himself up while one hand went to grab his pistol. "Take the out while you still have the chance!"

"Maybe I'll just take you out instead," Tina growled, before more magic words poured from her mouth.

"Please, Tina!" Phoebe pleaded as she struggled to her feet. "We just want to help. You don't have to do this! You don't have t-"

On the T sound, her voice seemed to catch in her throat. Phoebe's mouth started opening and closing like a fishes, and she clutched a hand to her chest as she struggled to get in a breath of air.

Prue's face took on a panicked expression. "Phoebe…"

There were more magic words, and Dean was slammed back into the floor and held there like there was a cinderblock on his back.

"Damn it!" he shouted at Tina.

The witch only shook her head as she sat back down. "Now where was I…"

(-:-)

While Sam had said that nothing could be done if it was a hex making Anya tear at her skin, Piper had insisted that there must be some remedy they could find. She had gone upstairs to look for cortisone cream or maybe a magic remedy in a book. She hadn't even made it past the medicine chest, though, when there was screeching downstairs.

She nearly sprinted down to the ground floor, and started to panic when she saw Anya in the middle of the conservatory, holding her stomach.

Sam was next to her, trying to see what was wrong.

"What's going on?" Piper asked sharply, running over to where the popular blonde was sprawling.

"She's bleeding," Sam said. "She-she wasn't even scratching, just all of a sudden something ripped up her stomach."

"Anya, Anya, let us look," Piper started saying frantically, pulling Anya so that she was laying face up. Tears were running over the sides of her face into her already disheveled hair. The lower part of her shirt was smeared with blood, and she was holding her arms firmly over the wound.

Piper felt her breathing start to go uneven. Anya just kept screaming.

(-:-)

Prue tried to rush over to her sister and help her breath, even though she wasn't sure how. Phoebe was trying to gasp for air, but nothing came through. Her face was turning red and the longer Prue stood there, the more she understood that there was nothing she could do.

"Prue!" Dean shouted from where he was still pinned. "Distract her. Attention off me so I can shoot!"

Prue didn't even look at him for confirmation before whirling on the witch. Her little sister was suffocating in front of her, and the reluctance Prue had felt was gone. A wave of her arm flung Tina into her nightstand. Photo-frames and lamps rattled and the drawers shook, but when Tina screamed, it was in shock. Not agony.

"Bitch!" she shouted, hesitating for half a second before scurrying back to her book.

Thankfully, Dean seemed able to stand again, and Phoebe took in a gasp of air. He drew his gun as he slid back to his feet, and pointed it at Tina just in time for another string of words to spill out.

Again, Dean was thrown against the wall, hard enough that his brain rattled in his skull and the pistol was thrown out the open door. He let out a long string of curses after falling to the floor again while Tina chanted another spell. Phoebe and Prue were both tossed into a corner.

It took a few moments for Dean to start to move again. All of his weapons were gone, and Phoebe and Prue were helpless. The look he could see in Prue's eyes was telling him that he would have to use his powers.

"Dean…Dean you have to…" Prue started to shout.

He closed his eyes regretfully. Damn it, he had been avoiding this. Why couldn't it have been like any other hunt…

Tina had returned to the altar and was chanting entirely focused now. The spell was almost done. The rabbit had almost been bled dry.

"Damn it kid! Listen for three fucking seconds!" he shouted.

She kept chanting.

It looked like he was out of options.

(-:-)

Anya was completely thrashing now. Sam had run upstairs and gotten some towels to try to slow the bleeding, but when he had gotten back it was only worse.

The hex had sliced into her arms now too. Both sleeves were completely torn apart, with cuts across both her lower and upper arms. Her jeans were soaked with blood. It looked like she was trying to fight against some unknown attacker, flailing all over the living room floor.

Piper was sitting near her, trying in vain to calm her down, nearly starting to cry herself in the process. "Anya," she pleaded. "It's going to be okay just-just…"

Sam dropped to the floor near them, looking just as freaked out. He put the towels down, not knowing at all how to help now that this was what was happening.

"Can't you freeze her?" Sam blurted.

"I tried," she argued. "I-I can't right now…It…it's not working. I can't…" She was almost just as frantic. She really had tried while Sam was gone, but even while she normally only froze things while she was freaked out, it just hadn't worked this time. She didn't understand, and it was angering her because yet again their lack of control was getting in the way.

She took in a shuddered breath. "The others are the only ones that can stop this," she said shakily, remembering that she hadn't wanted to kill the girl any more than Prue and Phoebe had.

Watching Anya spasm on the floor changed that for some reason.

(-:-)

There was power radiating off of Tina as she reached the last few lines of her spell. Dean was barely staggering to get up, and his head was filled with dread as he thought about what he was about to do.

He had killed witches with guns before. He had killed a warlock attacking him and his family with his powers before.

He had never outright made a girl implode so that there was no trace for her family to find before.

As if his powers weren't messed up enough.

"Damn it, kid, I don't want to do this!" he shouted as he managed to regain his footing.

Tina was feeling arrogant at this point, though, so she looked up and let out a tiny breath. "Do what?" she scoffed. "What could you do to stop me now?"

Dean flinched, but he held up his hands and reached into the same impulse and pressure on his muscles that he had been setting off by accident for days now. He didn't blink, he didn't even look away as he pushed them in front of him, and for the first time, the explosion he caused was deliberate and effortless.

Tina barely had time to recognize what had happened before power burst from her gut. Her scream mixed with the bang the explosion made, and Prue and Phoebe hid their faces.

The rabbit swung from the ceiling fan lazily as the air began to settle from the spell. Prue and Phoebe looked at Dean nervously, and for a few minutes, they just stood there.

Eventually, Dean reclaimed his guns. Phoebe crawled under the bed for her crowbar. They all walked pensively to the impala again.

No one said a word.

(-:-)

Piper was getting desperate. Blood had started to pool on the floor. She and Sam had tried forcing Anya to be still, but it only resulted in Sam getting hit in the jaw and a blood stained towel being flung across the room. Tears were pooled in the corners of her eyes. They couldn't stop this, and Anya couldn't take much more.

But suddenly, Anya's screaming started to lessen. She was still wailing, but she seemed to be able to breathe again, and she wasn't flailing like something was hurting her anymore. She started to whimper words to them. "It hurts…Please, please…help me…"

Both Piper and Sam jumped into action now that she was still. Piper pressed a towel to her stomach, slowing the worst of the bleeding, while Sam did the same for her arms.

Neither of them really suggested going to the hospital, even though they knew she should see a doctor. She had lost a lot a blood. Yet, Sam was adamant that they didn't want to bring her parents into this right now, and they would never know what to tell the doctors had happened to her.

So, the two of them worked in silence to wrap her wounds. Once she could move to sit up against the couch, they started bandaging her up. They worked for almost half an hour before the front door opened, and Dean, Prue and Phoebe solemnly walked in.

Phoebe looked pale and scared. Prue looked concerned. Dean's face was unreadable.

"Everyone alive?" he grumbled as he walked into the living room.

Piper nodded to him, and went back to tending to Anya. Phoebe noted the puddle of blood that someone had covered up with a towel, and silently went to go find some bleach and a scrub brush.

Dean and Prue went over to check on Anya, who glanced over at them sluggishly.

"T…Tina?" she asked questionably.

Neither Prue nor Dean spoke for a moment. "We took care of her," he eventually answered, his jaw tight.

Sam looked at the floor. Anya's eyes filled with tears, having the sensibility to feel guilty, knowing that all of this was partly her fault.

Dean continued. "You can stay here for the night to recover, but you need to be out in the morning." He didn't say another word before standing up and walking to the basement.

Piper and Sam just shared a look, knowing that this had to be bad.

Prue sighed a little, and got up to follow him.

The door to the basement almost slammed in Prue's face as she chased Dean down.

"Dean, it wasn't your fault!" she blurted, really not knowing what else to say. That's what it came down to, after all. He felt guilty for everything that had been happening, but it wasn't his fault. He could hardly control it, and he couldn't blame himself.

He just turned to face her and was about to tell her to just get out and leave him alone when she put up her hands to stop him.

"No, you are going to listen to me. Tina was hurting people. You did what you had to do to protect us. She could have killed me and Phoebe."

"She was just a stupid kid," Dean said in a low voice, not ready to forgive himself for killing a teenager yet. "She was being picked on Prue, and even if I gave her what she had coming-"

"No," Prue interrupted. "You have to stop this. Tina had to be killed, whether we wanted to do it or not. Jayme-"

"Jayme has almost died because of me twice now!"

"Jayme could have died if you hadn't dragged him out of there!" Prue argued.

"I started the fire in the first place!"

"It might have happened anyway!" Prue said. "Dean you're a good person, the same person you were before this started-"

"Only now I can't leave the house without hurting people!" While their voices had been getting louder through the last several sentences, this was the first time he actually yelled. His voice was deep, and hoarse with emotions he refused to show outright.

"Last week, we had to evacuate Quake because of me. This week, I destroyed the shop, I nearly killed Sam and another kid, and I actually had to completely obliterate another. All of this crap…" He trailed off, clenching his fists hard at his sides.

He turned away, telling Prue that she should leave before he really lost it. He still didn't think it was safe, and it hurt Prue to think that.

"These powers might not be evil, but it sure as hell feels like it…"

Not knowing what else there was to say, or how else to try and convince him that it wasn't his fault, Prue just walked forward and wrapped him in a hug. He didn't reciprocate, but leaned a head on her shoulder, and started to drown in his distress.

(-:-)

The next day was sunny and hot. In other words: a normal day in San Francisco.

Prue's first real day at work was more getting organized and continuing to get settled than anything. She had brought all of her reference books from the house, and the IT department was happy to set up her computer. At lunch she chatted with Laurie and Alan again over a couple of pre-packaged sandwiches, and water from the cooler down the hall. She smiled congenially at everyone, making nice with them on her second day at work.

All in all, she thought she did a good job keeping face after having hunted a witch the night before. She was still stressed from that, and still trying to figure out what to do about Dean, and still figuring out how to extend Sam's punishment for lying to them. No one noticed, though, and that's what she was going for.

She had actually almost forgotten that she had a date tonight, and she was a little surprised when she heard a knock on her office door. Even, so, she smiled when Andy peeked in.

"Hey," she greeted, shoving a notepad back into her purse. "Almost ready, just give me five seconds…"

Andy just seemed to shrug. "Not like we're in a rush," he said congenially, as she started to slip out of her chair. "How did the thing go last night?"

The rhythm of her heart jumped when he said it. Oh god. How did he know? Why was he here talking if he knew? "L…last night?" she asked, nervously gripping the strap on her purse.

"Yeah, you said there was a thing with Sam, remember?"

Oh.

Prue pursed her lips. "Oh, that," she said, chuckling nervously. "Not great, actually. He…" She paused finding the words in her head. "We found out about something and he's grounded until further notice." Alright, so that had happened before Andy called, but she might as well share the news.

"Nothing serious is it?"

She shook her head. "No," she answered, not elaborating as they walked out of the office and towards the elevator.

"Nothing that you'll have to run off in the middle of dinner for?"

Prue smiled in amusement, and turned to look at him as they reached the elevator. "Definitely not," she answered, ready for just a relaxing night.

(-:-)

Despite the tragedies that had occurred, and despite how the entire school had been cruel about the deaths of Jenae and Amber, the memorial assembly Friday afternoon was almost packed.

As it turned out, while Amber was only making fun of Tina, Anya had taken the idea of honoring her friend's death to heart, and gone to see the principal about having a small memorial service in the gym for anyone that wanted to go. Sam suspected that most of the turnout was just to get out of class, but he was there because he knew that the deaths weren't a laughing matter.

Brady had come with him, and was zoning in and out of the service in the seat next to him. A few times he would whisper something about how the speakers were full of shit. Sam had to agree. The football player that talked about how Jenae was such a good girlfriend was only saying so because he was expected to. The teacher who said Amber was a great student knew she cheated on tests. Even when Anya got to speak, she laced her eulogy with white lies now that she understood how her friends had been so cruel.

Standing in the middle of the gym floor, she looked small and tired. Sam didn't blame her after the night before. She was wearing all black, with long sleeves to hide the bandages that covered her arms. She was pale, and a little broken. Everyone else in the gym just assumed that losing her best friends like she had took a toll on her, and that was probably for the best.

At the end of the assembly, Sam and Brady walked out to the parking lot together.

"You'd have thought Tina would have shown up for that," Brady said, shielding his eyes from the sun as they walked back into the daylight. "I know Amber and Jenae picked on her, but Tina still would have been nice and turned out for the memorial service."

Sam had kept his mouth closed about Tina too. Dean had looked it up this morning, and said her parents hadn't reported her missing yet. It had only been twelve hours, though. They might not have realized that Tina wasn't in her room overnight. They may even have assumed she had snuck out. No one else seemed to really notice she was gone, though, and Sam wondered if that was good for them, or just kind of sad.

"Yeah, she must be sick or something," Sam put in, looking around the back parking lot and waving when he saw Piper's jeep. He said his goodbyes to Brady before running to the car and hopping in.

"Hey," Piper greeted.

"Hey," Sam replied. "I thought Dean was supposed to pick me up."

He could tell by the way Piper wrinkled her nose that Dean still wasn't doing great. No one was blaming him just yet, seeing that the past few days had just been one nightmare after another, but they saw troubled waters in their future if he didn't get a handle on things soon.

"Dean's hanging out at the shop today," she answered. "The lot might be a wreck, but he wanted to see if he could salvage any of the equipment for the owner, or at least haul it to the scrapyard to get some cash back for the guy."

Sam shook his head a little, looking out the windshield. "At least he has a way to try and fix what he messed up," he said. "I'm just grounded for the next month."

Piper shook her head. "That's because we can't figure out how else to punish you," she answered. "You lied, and with all the chaos going around that just isn't okay. We need to stick together until everything settles out again, and that means we can't keep things from each other."

"Piper, you saw how Dean reacted," Sam said. "I just didn't want to freak everyone out until they had gotten a handle on their powers, alright?"

"That isn't a good excuse, and you know it."

Piper pulled out of the parking lot to start driving home. After a bit of silence, she started talking again, though.

"You know, a few months ago, if someone had told me we were going to get powers, I would have thought Dean would be all for it," she said. "Prue would have been devastated because it's just another thing to deal with, and I would have started bawling my eyes out. But Dean would have had no problem getting control of the situation and figuring out what to do about them. I would have thought that if anyone liked being powerful it would have been him."

Sam frowned, and lowered his eyes. With how cocky Dean could act, he understood how Piper would get that impression, but she also hadn't been around when Dean went hunting.

"You know why Dean likes hunting with my dad, right?" he asked. "It's not something he does because he's power tripping from killing monsters. He hunts because he likes saving people. He likes knowing that you guys…well, that all of us are protected from monsters."

"But he can't do that if he thinks he's the monster?" Piper guessed.

Sam winced. "Something like that," he muttered.

They were quiet for another beat.

"Do you think he'll figure it out?"

"I hope so."

(-:-)

Dean's hands were grimy from ashes and motor oil when he heard the groaning of an old truck outside the big garage doors. He eventually looked up, and smiled weakly when saw who it was, before standing up to go meet him.

Bobby Singer looked a little awed at the wreckage of the auto-shop as he climbed out of his old tow truck. He had been a hunter for nearly twenty years now, and he had _never_ seen this kind of magical destruction.

When the Halliwell family had gotten their powers, Bobby had been the first person Dean called. He was probably the only guy Dean trusted to take their situation seriously without being too harsh. Dean didn't even trust his own father that far. He was a man of about forty five years old, wearing worn out flannel and oil stained jean's that could rival Dean's, with a trucker cap on his head and a grizzly brown beard that was starting to gray.

The important thing right now, though, was that Bobby was a great resource. The man was brilliant, with an enormous collection of texts on magic and monsters of all kinds. If he wasn't so set on being a drunk, backwoods mechanic, Dean was pretty positive that he could teach at a university.

Moreover, when Dean had called Bobby, he had admitted to knowing Grams was a witch.

"Hey Bobby," Dean greeted, not bothering to wipe the oil off of his hands as he walked over to join Bobby next to his truck.

"Jesus, boy, what happened here?"

A tiny, entirely un-amused laugh came out of Dean's throat as he looked back. The metal all over the shop was black and burnt, and all of the equipment inside was probably ruined. "This," he began shakily, "is what happens when you give a guy the power to blow stuff up with his hands." He tried to make it sound like a joke, but when Bobby looked at him, it was obvious that he didn't buy it. So Dean coughed. "What've you got for me?"

Bobby reached in through his truck window and pulled a manila folder out, holding it up definitively. "Here ya go: all the research I did on witches when I found out about your Grams," he said.

Dean smiled a little as he took the folder. Bobby was technically a friend of John's, a man he had met on the road one day when the boys were young, and who he occasionally met up with for a few hunts. Yet at some point in the mid-eighties, John had needed to make an emergency run back to San Francisco in the middle of a hunt, and Bobby had come into company with Penny Halliwell.

None of the kids had really gotten it when they were younger, but Grams and Bobby had made quick friends during that visit, despite the decade or so of an age gap. They could talk about just about anything together, and more disturbingly they seemed to even flirt a little, which wasn't _normal_ for their grandmother, especially towards a man who said he hunted large game for a living.

Now that they knew what he _actually _hunted, and that Grams was a witch, it suddenly made a lot more sense that they would have had a lot to talk about. He had popped in and out of the manor a lot over the years.

Dean flipped open the folder, and wasn't surprised to see that it was thick with print copies of pages from various ancient texts. It wasn't as thick as it could have been, but it wasn't something Dean was going to read here and now.

"Cliff's Notes version?" he asked hopefully.

Bobby smiled lightly. "Your powers ain't from any demons if that's what you're askin," he said, hoping it would be of some consolation. "Powers like yours apparently come from the same unearthly power-source that all other magical beings get it from, both good and bad. You, Sam and the girls just have the ability to tap into it."

Even with that weight off of Dean's mind, knowing that their souls were safe from having their souls harvested, it didn't actually make him feel any better. He looked up and smiled though. "Thanks man, that's good to know at least…"

Bobby still caught on to what he was thinking, and he frowned a little while he pulled something else from his truck. "Also brought that book ya asked for," he said, sounding like he was regretting bringing it.

The book on the other hand made Dean feel a bit relieved. He wasn't the research monkey Sam was, but he had helped Bobby out now and again too. Once or twice he had looked up potion recipes for him, and he had a good enough memory that one of the mixtures in the book had come to mind immediately when they had gotten their powers.

He opened his mouth to say thank you again, but Bobby obviously didn't want to hear it. The older man put his hand up to stop him before he could even open it. "Now don't go doin' something stupid with it," he warned. "Just cause you cain't control it now doesn't mean you won't ever be able to. Not if you don't give it some time."

"Just want it for reference, Bobby," Dean said, smirking a little at how paranoid the man could be. He clapped the man on the shoulder. "Thanks for comin' down."

Bobby wasn't buying the line, but he sort of had other places to be. The Changelings in Baja weren't going to torch themselves. "Passin' through anyway, kid," he responded, before starting back to the truck. He climbed in and started the engine wordlessly, but leaned out the window for one last reminder. "Tell the others I said hi."

Dean nodded, and waved a little as Bobby pulled away, and then looked to the book in his hand. It was old and worn, burnt orange in color. The once gold embossed tile on the cover was now only faintly readable as a reading primer, but Dean knew when he opened it, it would be a handwritten collection of spells and potions from an eighteenth century healer in New England.

The pages at the front were dry and worn, all of them unnumbered, as he flipped through, eventually reaching the potion he had remembered.

Dean had to give Bobby his credit. It was a shame the man didn't have any kids of his own, because Bobby had the knack of knowing when any of the Halliwells was about to do something that they had been told not to.

He looked at the potion for another minute before snapping it shut and going to throw both of the items Bobby had given him into the Impala, but the book still fell open to that page as he walked back into the garage.

_How to Bind a Dangerous Power_


	4. Chapter 4

So ep 4 I think is kind of boring because I stuck to the script really close, but at the same time, I kind of love John Cho's episode, so I couldn't bear to butcher it too much. I did warp Yama to fit the Supernatural Ghost Mythology, though, and Dean gets to wrap up his storyline…but that's basically the only thing that's new about this chapter. Sorry. I assure you I'm ashamed of myself.

Also: Piper's powers don't freeze Yama here because this was the only episode in the entire series where Piper's powers were used on ghosts.

Additionally, I warn you about the Chinese. I tried copying it as they spoke, but It wasn't working out, so I just did google Translate. If someone wants to offer the proper translations/transcriptions for me, I will change it. Otherwise, you can accuse me of being an ignorant American and I will not argue with you

Updates from here out might slow down a little, since the chapters posted are the only ones that are completely finished. Chances are good that I'll post in bunches like this.

Finally: I'm not going to beg, but a review would not be nice. Just to know I'm not wasting my time.

(-:-)

The majority of the Halliwell house was in the kitchen when Prue started down the stairs and heard the doorbell ring. She immediately walked to get it, and wasn't entirely surprised when she saw Andy Trudeau standing in the entryway.

A few weeks ago she would have been nervous or confused to see him standing there, but today she was happy to see him. They had been seeing a lot of each other lately, going out on plenty of dates, and she had really begun to like him again.

"Andy, hi," she greeted.

"I was nowhere near the neighborhood, thought I'd stop by," he said by way of explanation.

A small laugh escaped from Prue's throat. "Honest man," she replied, moving aside and holding open the door. "I like that.

He took a few steps in, and she pursed her lips a bit as she closed the door.

"So," she started. "Um, I had a great time last night."

"Yeah, me too," Andy said, though he was still grinning at her, like he had a secret. "But I forgot to give you something very important."

Prue's eyebrows raised as he reached into his jacket, and pulled out a small, pastel blue box.

"Happy birthday."

There was a flutter in her chest that he had remembered it was coming up. Though, since it wasn't actually today, she got a little suspicious. "But it's not my birthday until next week," she said, reaching for the package, curious to know what he had gotten her.

He snatched it just out of her reach. "Consider this a preview," he said, grinning even wider.

She narrowed her eyes with a smile, and grabbed it out of his hands. He chuckled a little to himself as she pulled the lid off the box, only to see a key. It was pretty plain, just like all the other keys in her purse, but there was a numbered tag on the end of it.

Her eyes flitted up to meet his. "A key?" she questioned.

"To the Calistoga Spa," he answered. "We leave Friday night after work."

Hearing the words, Prue understood almost exactly what that would mean, and her heart fluttered again. This time, though, it was with nerves rather than flattery.

It wasn't like she hadn't had sex with Andy before. Despite her normal sensibilities, they'd actually had sex shortly after they had been reunited a little over a month ago. She had made it very clear afterwards, though, that she didn't want to take it that far again until she knew for sure what she was doing with the relationship. At least that was what she had told him.

Her gut started to flip flop a little, too, because even if they weren't having sex now, she certainly wanted too.

As if sensing her discomfort, Andy gently added, "Don't worry, I got us adjoining rooms."

"Adjoining rooms?" Prue echoed.

"Well, I wouldn't want to assume something I'm not supposed to be assuming," Andy said. There was a tiny hint of begrudging in his voice. "Although it has been over a month since we…decided to take it slow, but no pressure."

Prue looked away from him, her jaw clenching a little. Even so, Andy's gaze softened a little, and he let his voice drop a little. "I just want to be with you," he said honestly. "Away. Together. Think about it."

She looked back up at him and nodded. "Okay," she said.

He moved forward, giving her a kiss before he started towards the door. "Let me know. Bye."

Prue opened the door for him, not saying a word as he walked out, and closed it behind him.

Immediately she let out a heavy sigh. And forced herself to ignore how her face was slowly flushing red at the prospect of going away with him for the weekend.

It sounded good.

Actually, it sounded great.

But one weekend away was all it would take for him to figure out that she had been keeping a secret from him. He could find out that she was a witch, and for the sake of her family, she couldn't let that happen.

As the conundrum floated through her head, she started to walk back upstairs to put the key in her room.

"Happy birthday to me…" she muttered to herself.

(-:-)

On the other side of town, though, it really was someone's birthday, and as Mark Chao walked out of his mother's house, he could only smile at her. She had insisted he join her that morning for a birthday breakfast, complete with hugs and balloons despite the fact that he was turning twenty three. Honestly, though, he loved his mother, and he loved that she was doing so much to show that she cared.

As he headed out the door, though, she had begun to warn her son to be careful today. She had always been superstitious, and was always worried about evil spirits lurking in the shadows.

"Give me a break, mom," he sighed, though he smiled as he walked through the door, the balloons she had bought floating near his face.

She just followed him and continued her point with a smile. "_There are a lot of hungry spirits out there, Mark_," she responded to him, speaking in Chinese.

With a slight laugh, he replied, "You're like the Chinese Shirley McLaine, you know that?"

"_Better safe than sorry_," she added, walking up to him and patting him on the shoulder.

"I'll risk it."

His mother didn't look at all happy about that as he walked into the yard. "You should have more respect for ghosts, Mark," she said. "If your grandmother were here…"

"She would warn me about all the evil spirits walking the streets in Chinatown. I know, I know."

After giving him a _mom-look_, she turned around and nervously pulled a charm off from in front of the door. It was a carved lion, painted red, that she kept hung on the door. It was supposed to keep spirits out of the house, she had always told him.

"You should take this for protection," she said, walking back to him and pressing the charm into his hands.

Mark just shook his head a little and walked back up the steps to hang it back up, not at all noticing the almost sad look on his mother's face as he did so.

"Maybe the ghosts need protection from me," he joked lightly as he walked back to her and kissed her on the cheek. He assured her, "I'll be okay, Mom. I'm twenty three now. I can take care of myself, okay? I gotta go…" he handed the balloons off to her before starting to walk back into the city.

"Happy birthday, Mark!" his mother called after him.

Mark smiled, and turned to wave at her. "Thanks!"

The walk back to his apartment wasn't far, maybe ten or fifteen minutes, tops. All he had planned now was to get to the garage and head to work. Not the most exciting birthday, but it wasn't a huge deal to him.

He waved at a woman as he passed through the market, looking for an alley that would get him across to the next street. He was almost there…

But as he got halfway through the alleyway, three other Chinese men appeared from behind a dumpster. He attempted to go past them, but they deliberately blocked him, keeping him from continuing to go on.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Mark turned to go the other way and found that another two thugs had appeared to block him in on the other side.

A sixth man walked through, looking up and down Mark appraisingly.

"Is this the guy?" one of the thugs asked this man, who was apparently the leader.

"That's him," he assured, before smiling mockingly at Mark. "Is today your birthday?"

Mark could feel nerves tickling his throat as he started to answer. "Who are you?" he managed to get out. "What do you want?"

"You," the leader responded shortly as he reached for a gun at his waist. He pointed it right at Mark as he said, "Make a wish."

Before Mark could do anything, the gun went off, bullets hitting him in the chest. He crumpled to the ground from the force alone, but he didn't feel it when he hit the concrete.

He didn't feel anything at all actually.

He didn't feel hot, like he normally did when he got into stressful situations. He didn't feel the craggy-asphalt scrape at his hands as he picked himself up off of the ground. He didn't even feel like gravity was try to pull him off balance as he got to his feet and looked back at the thugs. They were all looking at their boss as he knelt down next to Mark.

That was when he turned around, looking down and saw his body. There was blood draining from his chest. His limbs were sprawled haphazardly. His face was slack from lifelessness.

Seeing his corpse made emotion well up in his consciousness. If he still had his body, his heart would be pounding, his mouth would be going dry. But since he didn't, it was only an emotion. Panic starting to surge through his being.

He was dead.

"Perfect fit," the leader muttered as he slipped a ring onto Mark's finger. When he stepped back, one of the thugs stepped forward with a red gas-can, and began pouring fuel over Mark's body.

"What are you doing?" Mark gasped, taking a step back as another man stepped up with a book of matches. His body was completely drenched with the gasoline when the man lit the match.

Mark's eyes went wide. "Hey, wait!" he shouted. No one heard him as Tony tossed the match onto the gasoline, and his body went up in flames.

"No!"

(-:-)

As Prue spoke with Andy, and Mark met his fiery death in a nondescript alley, the manor kitchen was hectic as three of the other Halliwell cousins got ready to start their day.

Piper was bustling around the island, looking at a stack of invitation cards nervously. Sam was on the other side of the counter top slowly eating a bowl of cereal, and looking at Dean concernedly as his older brother rummaged through the spice cabinets.

Piper seemed not to notice, though, and looked up at her younger sister in aggravation when she walked through the door.

"Good morning," Phoebe greeted her housemates, smiling broadly at all of them until she saw the invitations that Piper had out on the kitchen island. "What are you doing?" she said, lowering her voice and leaning on the counter. "Prue's coming back. Put that away."

"Phoebe," Piper sighed. "You were supposed to send these invitations last week. The party is Friday."

As they had done every year since Piper was a teenager, the younger Halliwell cousins were attempting to throw a surprise party for Prue. Piper, despite her sometime shy and nervous demeanor, was a born hostess. She loved to throw a party if she could, and her sister's birth was always a good excuse. Phoebe wasn't so hot on the planning, but she was always happy to help entertain the guests. Dean and Sam for the most part weren't interested in them, since Piper refused to let Dean partake in the alcohol served until he was legal, and they were a lot younger than most of Prue's friends. They always agreed to help, though, for the sake of making Prue and Piper happy.

Dean could be heard slamming spice jars around as Phoebe responded. "Then we're right on schedule. The restaurant is reserved, the menu selected, the cake has been ordered."

"That's because Piper did all of those things," Sam said, sounding slurpy since he still had cereal in his mouth.

Phoebe looked at him as if daring him to tell her she was slacking off again, but Piper just sighed in irritation, trying to drown out the continuing rattle in the cabinet behind her. "At least tell me you managed to…" The banging got louder, and she rounded on Dean.

"What the hell are you doing to my cabinets?"

Dean slowed, and for a couple of seconds, he turned around and blinked like he didn't know why he was getting yelled at. It also might have been the deer-in-the-headlights stare of someone who had been caught doing something they shouldn't. Dean was tricky like that sometimes.

"Er. Just looking."

A look appeared on Piper's face that told everyone that she didn't buy it. The kitchen cabinets were for the most part her domain. Dean's cooking knowledge was limited to not boiling toast and heating up spaghetti-o's, so his newfound interest in the spice cabinet was strange.

"This is the ninth time this week," she pressed. "What on earth could you be looking for?"

Dean rolled his eyes a little. "Can't you just go back to harping on Phoebe? Remember, you wanted her to get Prue a better present than last years?"

"No, I will not," Piper said flatly. "And you have no room to talk. You get us the _worst_ presents."

"I don't get her cards three days late," Dean protested.

"No, you get us chewing gum and magazines," Sam muttered.

Phoebe piped up again. "Wait-who gets cards three days late?"

"You do," Piper said. "And don't say you don't. Have you even _looked _for a present this year?"

Phoebe pursed her lips a little, and looked at her hands guiltily. "Er…well no…I haven't yet," she tried explaining. Before Piper could look too disappointed, though, Phoebe piped up again. "But I'm going to! I swear."

"Really?" Dean challenged as he turned back to the cabinet, and continuing to shuffle through them. "Where are you going to get the money for it before Friday?"

Phoebe fought the urge to childishly stick out her tongue at him before Prue walked into the room.

"Morning," the eldest cousin greeted everyone.

"Good morning," Phoebe said, briskly changing the topics. "Hey, I forgot to ask, how was your date with Andy?"

Prue smiled tensely. "It was great actually," she said.

No one really bought it, so when Sam stood up to take his cereal bowl to the sink, he asked, "Then why do you look like you're about to hurl?"

There was a moment's pause as Prue thought about how to word it, or lead into it. She wrinkled her nose a little. "He asked me to spend the weekend with him at a spa."

Piper suddenly looked panicked, knowing it would ruin her party plans. Phoebe on the other hand looked entirely baffled as to why this was a bad thing.

Dean actually laughed a little. "That sounds pretty terrible, Prue," he said as he shuffled through a few more bottles, standing on his toes to get to the highest shelf. "Do I need to go after him for offending you?"

Piper frowned at his comment before nervously looking back at Prue. "For _this_ weekend?" she asked. "You didn't say yes, did you?"

"I thought about it," Prue said honestly, though censoring how her body had basically screamed at her to go. "But I don't know. I just have to think about it…"

Phoebe snorted a little. "A weekend of rest, rubdowns and room service: What's to think about?" she questioned. On the other side of the counter, Piper looked at her pointedly. "Um. I mean, you could be right, Going away with a guy is like…"

"It's like bringing them home to meet the parents," Piper supplied. "It changes everything. And if you're not sure if you're ready to make a commitment or not, you don't wanna send the wrong signal."

Sam opened his mouth to say something about how it _really_ might be a bad idea because they were witches, but Phoebe cut him off. "Plus, you need a week to prepare for a weekend away. There's lingerie shopping, waxing, manicure, pedicure. I mean, it's basically a full time job and you've already got one. You'll never be ready, not if you started packing this second."

The eldest sister looked incredibly suspicious. "You guys aren't trying to plan another surprise party for me, are you?"

Everyone put on their most dignified w_ould we do that again?_ looks.

"No, never."

"Why bother?"

"Of course we aren't."

"We've given up trying to surprise you, Prue."

Prue still looked around at all of them suspiciously. Piper was mostly avoiding her eyes, instead messing with something on the counter. Dean was still bumbling through the cabinet, not facing her at all, and Phoebe was smiling a little too widely for comfort. Sam focused on the counter, giving away no hint of what he was thinking at the moment aside from that his cousins and older brother were ridiculous people.

But she decided to leave it. There really wasn't too much harm in them trying to make her birthday a happy one, after all. "Well, that's good," she replied with a small laugh. "You all know how much I hate surprises."

With that, she walked out of the room, ready to head for work, leaving the other four to look at each other nervously until she was out of earshot.

Piper started to glare a little at Phoebe, and Dean turned away from the spice cabinet for the first time that morning when she hissed, "Damn it, Phoebe, if you had sent Andy his invitation we wouldn't be in this mess."

Phoebe looked affronted, of course. "What are you talking about?" she snapped back. "You heard Prue, she doesn't want a party. You should be glad I flaked. Besides, you know as well as I do that she's gonna go away with Andy."

"We don't know that for sure," Piper said pointedly.

Dean snorted a little. "Piper, she's gonna go," he said surely. "Besides last year's party was a disaster. Maybe skipping this year wouldn't be a bad idea."

The look Piper gave him was beyond irritated, but it was Sam that spoke up. "Dean, come on. Last year wasn't Piper's fault. Roger was being a jerk."

Everyone wrinkled their noses a little at the mention of just _another_ reason they had all hated Prue's ex, and Piper stood up a little taller. "It's been a rough year," she said in defense of her party. "Especially on Prue. I'm having this party for her."

Considerately, Dean just put up his hands in defeat, and abandoned the cabinet all together as Sam slid out of his chair so they could leave for school.

Phoebe, on the other hand, sighed a little, and took her sister's look of commitment seriously. Still having the party meant that she was still committed to buying Prue a present before Friday.

And that meant she had a job interview.

(-:-)

The streets of San Francisco were still as busy as ever as Dean pulled over to the side of the road and parked the Impala. In the seat next to him, Phoebe was looking at the directions she had written down for herself to get to the place she was interviewing at. He didn't know what the job was, but he was happy to give her a ride.

"You can get there from here?" he confirmed one last time as he got out of the car, about to walk to the 'specialty' store he frequented on this street.

Phoebe smiled brightly as she popped out of the passenger side. "Yep, I got it," she said brightly. "What about you, where are you headed?"

"Just doing some shopping."

Phoebe raised an eyebrow, looking suspicious. "What kind of shopping?" she asked. "Nothing to do with why you're ripping the kitchen cabinets apart, would it?"

To play his part, Dean rolled his eyes and lied. Truthfully, he was in search of a special herb to make a power binding potion, but Phoebe, of all people, did not need to know about it.

The past several weeks since getting their powers had been rough for all of them, but Dean's powers were the only ones that did serious damage. He had killed two people with them, and set two buildings on fire. He had long since decided that he was getting rid of them one way or another, but Phoebe, who adored her powers, would never get it.

"Fine, you caught me," he answered her question easily. "There's just an herb we're out of that Piper needs to make pie. I wanted to pick some more up from a shop down the road, and see if I could get something nice for Prue."

Phoebe rolled her eyes. "Wow, you're thinking ahead this year."

"You know me, I'm just Mr. Thoughtful," Dean said. "Now go, before you miss your interview."

Phoebe nodded, and bounced away, and Dean sighed before turning to walk in the opposite direction.

It was a short stroll to the occult shop he frequented in town. While he didn't usually use magic, they also carried silver bullets, and special charms that helped to ward off evil spirits. Today, though, he was visiting for their large stock of potion ingredients.

For the past week, he had been trying to get everything together to brew the potion that would bind his powers away. Every resource he checked said that it shouldn't be too hard to find, but it wasn't in Piper's cabinet and it wasn't at the supermarket, so he was dubious. It was the last ingredient he needed, and the shop was his best chance.

When he walked inside, though, he was surprised to see Erik, one of the guys who worked with him at the auto-shop Dean had blown up last week.

"Hey! Dean!" the man greeted him brightly.

"Erik?" Dean questioned. "Hey, man, what are you doing here?"

"Wife's cousin runs the shop," Erik answered. "Said he'd give me a few hours here until I could find another job."

A lump formed in Dean's throat after he said that.

Erik, he remembered, really needed work right now. His wife had just had a baby. Dean blowing up the shop, even by accident, had to have caused a huge problem for them.

"That's rough," Dean said, wincing a little.

Erik shrugged, though, and kept smiling. "It's not so bad," he said. "I get to spend plenty of time with my kid, and Mr. Logan said as soon as they get the shop rebuilt, he'll give me a call."

Dean was about to chip in with something about how he was glad it hadn't hit him too hard, his own way of apologizing for causing the mess, but Erik kept talking.

"He also said you've been helping out over there."

Dean raised an eyebrow, surprised anyone had heard about that. Seeing as the entire incident had been his fault, Dean had been down at what was left of the garage every few days, doing what he could to help. He wasn't exactly a pro, but he was good with his hands. He'd helped salvage equipment and clear out rubble all week, getting ready for a professional team to come back in and rebuild the metal frame. Mr. Logan had known, but he hadn't thought it was worth mentioning to others.

He scratched at the back of his head. "Ah…just helping out, ya know?"

"Yeah, it's still pretty cool of you," Erik said. "Most people wouldn't bother, and would go find work somewhere else. I know that's what Jayme did."

Dean just shrugged. "I got the time, might as well help out."

Erik decided to leave it at that, and just smiled. "I'm sure," he said, not even suspecting Dean's guilt, before waving a hand out at the shop. "So what can I help you find today?"

Dean's chest constricted a little as he considered what Erick would think if Dean revealed what he was there for. Even if Erik's wife's cousin ran the shop, that didn't necessarily mean he wouldn't know what the merchandise was for. Erik didn't need to know about Dean's extracurricular activities.

"Er…I need a present for my cousin's birthday…"

(-:-)

A few blocks down the road, Phoebe smiled confidently as she was lead through the lobby of Hotel Neptune. One of the day manager's was explaining about the position, making sure she knew what she was here for.

"No other hotel does psychic readings at the bar," he was saying. "It's kind of our trademark."

"Well that's why I'm here," Phoebe replied, looking up at him. "I saw your ad in the Chronicle. I'm a natural born psychic."

The manager, Frankie, didn't seem to believe her at all. "Yeah right," he responded sharply. "What's your act? Tea leaves? Tarot cards? Crystal balls? What?"

Phoebe's brow wrinkled, a little distressed that someone hiring a psychic didn't believe in them. "N-no, I see the future," she insisted. "I mean, I can't always see it, I never actually know when it's gonna work. Usually, when I touch someone or I'm in the same general area as them…" she trailed off, trying to find a better way to say it before smiling back at Frankie. "It's kinda hard to explain."

Frankie just blinked at her before looking over her head and calling, "Next!" before starting to walk away.

Phoebe jumped. _No!_ She needed this job! She had to get Prue a decent present this year. "No, wait!" she blurted, and catching his arm. Luckily, magic seemed to be on her side today, and as soon as she touched his skin, the images she needed came into her head.

"Frankie, hold on, I see it," she said, narrating her vision as it played. "You're having dinner with a blonde woman…she's gorgeous. All over you. Then some red head shows up. You look surprised…oooh. She looks pissed." She blinked as the images drained off. "Your wife?" she realized.

She wasn't impressed as she realized that she was warning this man that his wife was going to find out he was cheating, but at the same time, Frankie looked impressed. Phoebe felt a little sick about it, but Prue's present was more important than Phoebe's sensibilities.

"When can you start?"

(-:-)

"What did you decide about Andy?"

Prue's face warmed as she remembered the invitation to the spa, and she put the painting she was looking at back on her desk.

Piper had called a few minutes earlier, saying that Sam had asked if he could spend some time at Brady's after school, even though he was still grounded. The answer had been no, but from there, the conversation had trailed. They talked about Dean and his continuing distress, the Phoebe and her lack of a job. Not wanting to dwell on the melancholic situations of their housemates, though, Piper had changed the topic. Prue wasn't surprised that Andy had been chosen as a replacement.

It had been on her mind all morning, of course, but she was still wary. She was starting to fall in love with Andy again, and they had already had sex since they were reunited, so it shouldn't have even been a problem. But still, she wasn't entirely sure that she could trust him. What about her powers? What would he do if he found out? She pressed a palm to her head and closed her eyes.

"I don't know," she answered. "I keep thinking it's a bad idea, but then I think 'what's the big deal?' It's not like we haven't already slept together."

Piper on her end was quiet for a moment before she let out a breath. "I think you should go," she answered.

Prue's face went slack with surprise, but Piper continued.

"On Saturday."

And then Prue understood. "On Saturday," she sputtered. "Piper, you promised no surprise party."

"It's not what you think," defended Piper. "It's Phoebe. She bought you a present."

There was a sort of disbelieving sigh. "Phoebe doesn't give presents. She gives cards three days late."

"Not this year. Surprise," Piper said flatly as she fiddled with the newspaper on the table. "And she really wants to give it to you Friday. So could you please just ask Andy about leaving on Saturday instead?" She picked the paper up when she saw a red pen-scratch. Alright, that would mean that Phoebe hadn't actually gone looking until Piper had mentioned it that morning. But at least she had tried…

"You have no idea how much Phoebe has put herself through. She even…" she trailed off as she read the circled advertisement, though.

_Psychics Wanted_

"She even got a job and everything…"

Oh. Piper was going to _kill_ her.

Prue sounded thoughtful about this development. "Okay. I'll ask him, if I decide to go," she answered. "So what kind of job did Phoebe get?"

"Don't know, gotta go," Piper answered quickly, needing to get to her younger sister and see what she had gotten herself into now. "Ciao."

(-:-)

The drive down to the hotel didn't take too long, nor was finding Phoebe once she got there. Her younger sister was dressed in such a gaudy outfit it would have been hard to miss her.

She had her eyes closed, sitting at a table across from an older woman when Piper found her. She had a sparkly decal attached under her eye, and a hot pink hat on with gauzy trim that hung around the back of her head. Her similarly pink shirt had droopy sleeves that hung down as she held the woman's hands and told her fortune.

"…lots of other women…" she was saying, opening her eyes questioningly at the woman in front of her.

The woman looked perturbed, but she nodded. "Go on."

Phoebe closed her eyes again. "You're standing on a podium-no, wait…" A grin crept onto her face. "You're on a scale. It's a Weight Watcher's meeting." The grin fell away as she opened her eyes and winced a little. "Ooh, honey. It looks like you've gained some weight."

The woman looked incredibly affronted at this. "That's impossible!" she blurted. "I only cheated once this week."

"No, no," Phoebe said quickly, trying to defend her vision. "I'm not judging, I'm just seeing."

"You're a fraud!" the woman declared. "That's what you are. I've never been so insulted in my life. I want my twenty dollars back!" She reached for the big bowl that Phoebe was keeping her earnings in, but Phoebe grabbed it first.

"No way!" she blurted back at the woman. "I saw you! You know I saw you!"

Still upset, the woman just pulled her hands back and stormed away just as Piper walked up.

"If you want me to lie next time, just say so!" Phoebe yelled.

Piper frowned at her. "Phoebe!" she exclaimed.

The youngest sister turned around in surprise and tried to laugh when she saw her. "Piper!" she exclaimed. "I am so busted aren't I?"

Piper wasn't nearly as amused as Phoebe was pretending to be. "Are you out of your mind? She asked. It wasn't the first time this month she had asked that question, so he added. "Again?"

"No," Phoebe said, sounding nervous. "I'm the amazing Phoebe." She raised her hands, like she was advertising her mastery, but Piper just sighed.

"This is not funny. Our powers are supposed to be a secret, not a marketable job skill."

"Relax, they didn't hire me because they think I'm a witch. They hired me because they think I'm a psychic."

"Hair splitting," Piper retorted, blowing off Phoebe's explanation. "You know you can't use your powers for personal gain, not without consequences."

Phoebe made a face, remembering when she tried to win the lottery with her powers. Dean and Prue had both blown a gasket, but Phoebe hadn't won anyway because magic wiped her ticket.

"No, but it's for Prue. It's not for me," Phoebe said surely. "It's to pay for her present. It's completely selfless. Besides, this is the last place anyone would expect to find a real psychic. Believe me."

Almost as if to say she was wrong, there was a voice to their side, and the two of them turned to see an Asian man bouncing around nervously and out of breath. "Which one of you is the psychic?"

At the same time Piper said, "She is", pointing to her sister, Phoebe raised her hands. "Oh, I am."

The man looked incredibly relieved. "You can see me?" he asked, looking incredibly relieved. "Both of you?"

Piper rolled her eyes. "Of course we can see you, now back off," she growled, before looking back to her sister.

"Oh thank god," the man continued, almost like he didn't realize they were in the middle of a conversation. Or like he didn't care. "I've tried communicating with every psychic in the city. You were my last chance."

Phoebe's boss suddenly walked up behind him. "Phoebe, what are you doing?" he demanded. "You've got customers waiting."

The Asian man kept talking. "Okay, listen to me, you're the only ones that can help me."

Piper narrowed her eyes, and looked back at the two of them. "Excuse us, we are trying to have an argument here," she said, about to go back to berating her sister.

Frankie interrupted again. "Who are you?"

Trying to keep her job, Phoebe shook her head, and touched Piper's shoulder. "Uh, she's just leaving," she said, before looking at her sister. "Bye, Go now."

With a look that said she was not ready to end this conversation, Piper reluctantly walked away, shaking her head. She'd just have to bring it up when she got home later. Besides, she had to pick up Sam soon anyway…

Much to her annoyance, the Asian man followed her out of the hotel.

"Wait!" he insisted. "I need your help!"

"Yeah?" Piper almost snorted. "Talk to the psychic."

"Please, I'm begging you. I was murdered last night. I can prove it."

"Stop harassing me, buddy…"

"Please!" he repeated. "I'm desperate! You've got to help me."

Piper grit her teeth again. She didn't have time for this. "Leave me alone, or I'll call the police," she said back to him, before scoffing and looking at a woman she passed on the crosswalk. "Can you believe this guy?"

She turned away so quickly that she didn't notice the strange look that the woman responded with.

"All you have to do is come with me to Chinatown and see for yourself," the man continued.

Reaching the other side of the street, Piper rounded on him, pulling a can of pepper spray out of her purse. "Alright, that is it," she huffed. "Look, either back off or-"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a bicycle racing towards the man where he was still standing in the street. She shouted a warning.

"Look out!"

The man tried to dodge out of the way, but instead, the bike slammed right into him.

Or: it would have if Piper lived a normal life these days. Instead, the bike slid through him. The man rippled a little, like the image when you turned off an old TV, but he was still there.

He looked at her desperately. "Now do you believe me?" he asked.

Piper's jaw nearly fell to the ground. "Oh my god…" she choked out. "I can see you, but no one else can?"

He nodded. "I'm dead," he confirmed. "I'm a ghost."

Hearing that, Piper's heart started to race. Her mouth went dry, and it would be a lie if she wasn't a little terrified. But it wasn't as bad as it would have been if she had seen him a month ago, because now she knew exactly how to figure this out.

She pulled her cell phone out of her purse and called the house. Hopefully, Dean would be home to tell her how to deal with a ghost.

(-:-)

Prue nervously stepped through the doorway to Quake, looking around to see if she could find Andy. Okay, so she still wasn't entirely sure about whether she could trust Andy or not, but she had sort of gotten over the idea of going to the spa with him. If he was going to find out about her powers, she could worry about it another time. Right now, she just wanted to be with him, too.

The restaurant wasn't too crowded right now, so it wasn't hard to slink past the waiters until she found Andy.

Disconcertingly, though, he wasn't alone. Across the table from him was a woman with blonde hair and a blinding smile. The two of them were laughing, happy to be together. Prue felt her chest start to get tight with nerves as she walked over.

"Hi," she greeted slowly, when Andy saw her approach.

Andy just smiled. "Prue," he greeted, surprised, but not displeased to see her.

"Um, I tried calling the station house for you," she continued. "They said that you would probably be here." Her eyes trailed back to the woman sitting next to him. "Hi."

She just smiled back at Prue. "Hi."

Andy seemed to snap to it. "Oh, Prue, this is…"

She cut him off. "Susan," she answered. "Susan Trudeau. Nice to meet you. It's a pleasure."

_Trudeau_. She had his last name, but Prue knew for certain that Andy didn't have any sisters. He had grown up next door after all. She stopped that line of thought, trying to be hopeful that she wasn't his wife or something, and that he hadn't lied to her. "Trudeau. Sister?" she suggested.

Andy made a face and tried to get a word in. "No, actually…"

Susan cut him off again. "Wife."

Prue nearly felt her heart shatter. She tried to tell herself that she hadn't actually been looking forward to it anyway, but there was no doubt of the feelings in her chest as she looked at Andy. She turned around and started walking off.

"Ex wife!" Andy corrected, calling after her. "Prue! Wait, I can explain."

"Don't bother…" Prue grumbled, not looking back.

"It's not what you think," he tried again, but Prue wasn't going to listen.

Feeling the rage bubble up, trying to cover how hurt she was, she clenched her eyes, and felt power surge through her towards the first object she saw. She sent a dessert cart spinning towards him, and behind her, she heard a crash. She didn't look back, though, to see Andy get run over by the tray, and did her best not to cry as she ran out to her car.

(-:-)

Dean didn't like Chinatown. It was too crowded, and all the stuff they had to sell was junk (except cooking supplies, Piper insisted, and Dean wasn't going to argue). The only things he really even appreciated of their culture were porn and their take out.

Half an hour ago, though, Piper had called him, absolutely frantic. She had told him that a ghost had popped up and asked her and Phoebe for help. Dean had thought it was ridiculous, since ghosts didn't _ask_ for anything in his experience. They screamed a little, and tended to kill people, but they didn't ask for things.

But since he hadn't gotten the herb at the shop today, his plans to finish the potion had dead ended, and he didn't have anything better to do for the afternoon. So he went ahead and drove out to Chinatown to meet Piper after she picked up Sam from school.

Whatever the situation was, at least it was something that _resembled_ normalcy in his life these days. The witch business had been throwing him off, but ghosts were easy.

Ghosts he could deal with.

So he parked the Impala, grabbed an iron rod out of the trunk for good measure, and walked out to find Piper on the street corner she said they would meet at.

They apparently got there at about the same time, because once he reached the corner, he could see Piper walking towards him with Sam and an Asian man in tow. Piper had wanted to leave Sam at home, but Dean had insisted that if there really was a ghost, Sam knew what to do better than she did. However, Sam was staring in a confused and awed way at the man next to Piper.

"Hey Dean," she greeted, sounding nervous.

"Hey," he replied, looking at the man and gripping the iron bar in his hands a little tighter. "Who's this?"

"This is Mark, our ghost."

For a few seconds, Dean looked between her and Sam to see if they were joking. They didn't look like it. "Ah…I don't think so, Piper."

Piper put up her hands. "I didn't think so either," she insisted, "but-"

"No," Dean continued. "Piper, ghosts don't just walk up and chat. He can't…"

Sam, who was still staring at Mark, reached out towards the man and tried to touch his arm. His fingers completely passed through the man's bicep.

Dean's brow wrinkled and he tensed a little with this new information.

"Nah…" Sam muttered, his voice dazed. "I'm pretty sure he's a ghost Dean…"

Mark made a face, and gave a false smile to Dean. "Hey," he greeted.

Dean's only response, though, was "Holy crap."

"I know," Piper muttered. "Look, from what he's told me, he died earlier this morning. His body should be right around the corner…"

"Wait, wait, wait," Dean interrupted. "Before we focus on the ghost's problems, can I take a second to ask why the hellwe can see him?!"

Mark looked like he was a little offended and Piper looked even more concerned. "You mean this isn't normal?" she asked. "I thought you said you hunt ghosts."

"Actually, we don't deal so much with _ghosts_ as vengeful spirits," Sam corrected, still staring at Mark analytically. "Normal ghosts aren't powerful enough to manifest and cause trouble. They can't make things move, can't even make themselves tangible, usually…" He reached out and tried to touch Mark again, who just recoiled with an indignant _hey._

Dean looked at Piper. "Anyway, because they don't cause trouble and we can't see them anyway, we normally don't deal with the freshly killed. How the hell can we see you man?"

Mark's shoulders shrugged. "I know less than you do."

Sam on the other hand looked away from Mark and smiled. "I think it might be a side effect of our powers," he said brightly.

Piper's chest heaved, and Dean rolled his eyes. "Of course it is…" he muttered.

"Hey, this could be useful," Sam argued.

"Guys?" Mark called, dragging them all back to _his_ problems. "Can you help me out here?"

Dean shook his head and remembered, _yeah, just another ghost. _He could do this.

"Yeah, sure, where's your body, bro?"

Mark started to lead the three of them back out of the shop and towards a row of apartments. "C'mon, I don't have much time," he said. "The police have to find my body before it's too late."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?" he asked.

Not looking back, Mark continued to lead them to the alleyway. "There's this Chinese myth," he explained, "or at least I always thought it was a myth. It's called Thowhoi:_ when the gates of hell open._"

"Wait, the gates of hell?" Dean asked sharply. "If we're dealing with demons here you've got bigger problems-"

"No, it's not a demon. It's Yama. He's a gatekeeper, a guardian spirit. If he gets to a soul before they get a proper burial, he catches it and drags it down to hell forever."

The grim idea settled over the three of them as they turned down an alley. Up ahead, Piper could see a strange, burnt-black shadow. "But you said you were murdered. How can-"

Mark shook his head. "Yama doesn't care about good or evil. He just wants souls," he answered darkly, before adding, "I should have listened to my mother."

No one asked what that meant as they got closer to the dark shadow. As soon as they got to it, Piper gasped. There was his body, completely blackened, unrecognizable.

Everyone stopped to look. Even Dean cringed a little at the smoldering corpse. "This you?"

Mark cringed too. "Yeah," he said sadly.

Piper took a shuddering breath, and looked away from the body. "Okay," she said, a little sickened. "Uh, so guys, what do we do now?"

"Normally," Dean started to explain, "we just take the body somewhere, salt it, and burn it. But honestly I don't know what'll happen to your soul if we do that. I say we call the cops, see if a proper burial will put him to rest. You might just be a death omen and justice will set everything right. If not, we can do it our way."

Mark nodded. "That was all I was asking for," he said humbly. "Thank you for helping me."

Sam looked up at him, about to reply with something encouraging when he glanced behind the others and saw a shadow. His eyes went wide as a figure in old Chinese armor appeared astride a tall black horse.

"Ah-guys!" he choked, pointing.

The other three turned, and reacted similarly.

"Yama!" Mark announced as the spirit began trotting towards them.

Piper gasped. "Yama? Run!" She motioned for Mark to make a break for it, and moved her hands to try and freeze the spirit. She felt the magic run through them, but Yama didn't stop moving towards them. "Why aren't my powers working?"

No one answered, but Mark put himself in front of the three of them. "It's too late," he said. "You better go. Run!"

Dean hefted the long iron bar that he had been carrying at his side. Mark might not have been his _normal _kind of ghost, but Yama certainly was. Yama he could _definitely_ deal with. "Hell with that," he growled.

Yama began to charge.

The gatekeeper lowered his long spear, directing it at Mark as he picked up speed. Dean, just dodged out of the way of the spear and swung the iron rod like a base-ball bat.

The metal cut through the ghost, and Yama vanished with a screech.

"What the hell was that?" Piper gasped.

"Ghosts don't like iron," Dean explained, moving back, not lowering the rod.

"How long is that going to work?" Mark asked.

"Not long," Sam said. "We need to go."

With that, they all ran out of the alleyway, and were long gone when Yama reappeared, furious at losing his prey.

(-:-)

Phoebe was a little confused. She had gotten home from her first day as a psychic only to see Prue furiously cleaning the living room.

It was a little known fact about their family, but when something was wrong, the Halliwells tended to clean. Grams had done it incessantly when their mothers had died. Piper would furiously clean the ovens and refrigerator, like when she had been dumped in high school. Dean would go from one car to the next, making the garage and front yard glisten whenever his dad refused to take him on a hunting trip. Phoebe would do laundry when she was grounded for something she didn't do, and Sam had a weird habit of dusting and organizing bookshelves when the others would play tricks on him, or say he couldn't do something because he was the youngest.

So, finding Prue vacuuming the living room had immediately put Phoebe on alert.

It of course didn't help that the first words Prue said to her were that they were _not_ going to throw a surprise party for her, and that the restaurant had called so it wasn't like they could hide it from her. Then she had stomped into the bathroom started to take a steaming hot shower.

Now, Phoebe was hovering outside of the bathroom, talking to Prue through the door. She had heard the garage door open a few minutes ago, so it was only a matter of time before the others turned up.

"Prue, you can't do this," Phoebe argued. "Piper is gonna be crushed!"

Piper suddenly appeared from the kitchen, having snuck in almost silently. She made a face when she heard the statement. "What?" she asked. "Why am I going to be crushed?"

Just then, Prue opened the door to the bathroom. Her face was bright red from the heat, and like she had been crying. "The surprise party is off," she declared.

Piper kept on her poker face. "What party?"

"She's onto us," Phoebe said shortly. "The restaurant called while we were out."

"Oh," Piper muttered. "Is that why you're so upset?"

"It just hasn't been a great day," Prue muttered, as the door slamming from the garage heralded that the boys were coming in.

"Does it have anything to do with why Andy left eighteen messages on the machine?" Phoebe asked.

Prue was about to answer, but then Sam and Dean walked in with a stranger right behind them. She tried to cover herself more, because she was _not_ okay with near-nudity in front of strangers.

Phoebe got the idea and moved to help cover her with her jacket. "Hey!" she blurted. "Why is the drunk from the hotel here?"

Prue gaped. "What is a drunk doing here at all?"

Dean snorted a little as Mark turned away with an annoyed sigh. "I'm not a drunk," he announced.

Piper pursed her lips a little. "This is Mark," she said. "He's a ghost."

Prue made a face. "A ghost?" she asked. "Like a ghost we need to…deal with, or…"

"Not quite," Piper said. "He was murdered, and he needs our help."

"We're just keeping his soul safe until he gets a proper burial," Sam explained.

"Are we sure?" Phoebe asked, looking at Mark's back suspiciously. "I mean that he's a ghost. He doesn't look very ghostly."

Dean rolled his eyes, and waved a hand through Mark's chest.

"Hey!" Mark protested, rounding on Dean in annoyance.

Phoebe and Prue jumped a little, and more surely went back to defending Prue's modesty.

"Hey!" Prue blurted.

Closing his eyes and jumping a little, Mark turned around again. "Sorry!" he blurted, sounding frazzled.

Piper shook her head at them. "We'll be in the attic," she said simply. "Apparently my powers don't work on ghosts, and I would like to know why. We'll fill you in when you're decent."

With that, Piper headed for the stairs with Dean and Sam close behind. Mark slowly shuffled after them, careful not to look in Prue's direction and risk being snapped at.

Fifteen minutes later, Prue and Phoebe had joined the others in the attic, and had gotten a decent synopsis on the issues they were dealing with. Sam sat in the corner, researching Piper's powers, as Piper explained about Mark's situation and Dean gave them their general introduction to ghosts and vengeful spirits:

Spirits were souls that were left on earth because they either still had something to do or were magically tethered to the earth. Other times they were idiots and fought their Reaper (a soul collector for both good and bad) and chose to stay on earth instead of move on.

Normal ghosts were usually not strong enough to cause trouble or be seen by mortals, but apparently being witches came with a complementary pair of ghost-goggles so they _could _see them.

Vengeful spirits were ghosts that had been around for a long time, and become very powerful and hell bent on punishing whoever killed them.

Some ghosts wanted nothing to do with revenge, and only wanted justice. They were called Death Omens, and usually spent their time warning the future victims of their killers. At such a time as their killer was found out or that they were at least buried properly, they usually moved on. It was the traditional unfinished business gig, and they were assuming that this was the kind of ghost that Mark was.

There were also some spirits running around with no serious goal. Sometimes they became the equivalent of pagan gods, and sometimes they just terrorized the villagers. Apparently, this was Yama.

Iron and salt repelled all kinds.

You could get rid of them by settling their unfinished business or by salting and burning the corpse.

After the lecture, Prue was the one to start asking questions. "Wait a second, how do we know he doesn't belong in hell?"

Piper looked concerned at the mere suggestion, but Dean just shook his head. "Not our problem. Assuming that this is an unfinished business issue, he'll move on as soon as Mark is buried. A reaper or something will turn up and take him to whichever afterlife he's bound for."

Mark seemed to shudder a little at the suggestion, but Piper coughed. "Guys, if he turned up and found us, he has to be one of the innocents we're supposed to protect," she said firmly.

Phoebe snorted a little. "Protect him from what?" she joked. "He's dead."

Dean looked like he was about to explain something about how ghosts could be hurt, but Piper cut him off with a sigh.

"All we have to do is get Mark's family to give him a proper burial. It's not that hard. We called the police on the way to the house. I just want to give them a little time to notify Mark's mom before I go talk to her."

"Talk to her?" Phoebe asked. "And tell her what? That you're a witch in touch with the ghost of her dead son?"

"No," said Piper. "I'm just going to try and get her to have a funeral as soon as possible before Yama gets Mark's spirit."

Downstairs, someone heard a phone start ringing. Prue didn't move, afraid it would be Andy. Piper and Dean were locked on their ghostly guest for the night, and Sam was still reading. So, Phoebe popped up and went downstairs to get it.

"So what do we do in the meantime?" Prue asked.

Dean shrugged. "Dunno, never had a ghost as a houseguest before."

"Hope we don't make it a regular thing," Prue muttered.

Silently, Mark seemed to droop a little. Piper looked over at him comfortingly. "We'll figure it out," she said to the room at large, though it was entirely for his benefit.

A few moments passed before Phoebe peeked her head back in through the door. "That was my new boss, guys," she said, sounding apologetic. "He says there's something important at the hotel. Y'all can cover ghost-boy, right?"

Dean nodded assuredly, and Phoebe smiled.

"Alright, then I've gotta run," she said, starting to move away. Then she looked back into the room, adding, "Oh, and Prue: Andy called again. Everything okay?"

Prue's eyes drifted closed, almost annoyed. "Fine," she managed to choke out.

Even though no one believed her, Phoebe went ahead and left the room so she could get to work.

Dean and Piper, though, looked curiously at Prue. "What's going on with him, now?" Dean asked bluntly. "Is he that set on whisking you away this weekend?"

Prue shook her head. "No," she sighed. "It's not that. I actually decided to go ahead and go with him."

Dean's eyes narrowed a little, not having got the memo that Prue knew about the surprise party. Piper just shook her head when he looked at her, and turned to her sister. "Then what's going on?"

"Well, when I went to go tell him I was going, I found him having dinner with his ex-wife."

Now both Piper and Dean's looked a little upset on her behalf. Mark was off to the side looking confusedly between the three of them, not knowing what they were talking out.

"His what?" Piper asked.

Prue just looked up at them and gave them a thin lipped smile. "Yeah. You would've thought he would have remembered to tell me that before we started dating."

"What did he say?" Dean asked, his voice lowering protectively.

"I really didn't stick around to ask."

Piper looked at her sister curiously, about to ask for more details when they heard Sam exclaim, "_THAT's what it is!"_ from his corner of the attic.

Everyone turned to the youngest of the Halliwells as he stood up from his seat and crossed the room. One of Grams' less used books on magic beings was in his hand, and he looked excited about what he had found.

"Alright, so I found out why your powers didn't work on Yama," he announced, flopping onto the seat next to Piper and holding his book so she could see. "So you know how ghosts don't exist on our plane, right?"

Prue's brow wrinkled. "Ah-no actually-"

"It's not a huge concept," Sam said as if it were nothing. "They exist in a space that overlaps with our plane, so they have a sort of spiritual presence, but not a physical one. We can sense and sometimes see them, but we can't touch them. Got it?"

"No," Mark piped up.

Sam rolled his eyes. "I'll pretend you do. Because they aren't _physically _here, on the level of existence where you use your powers, you can't freeze him."

Dean shook his head a little. "Sammy, time still affects them," he said. "If Piper freezes time-"

Now Sam looked really excited, and he shook his head forcefully as he put out a hand and interrupted. "But she doesn't!" he blurted. "Piper doesn't just freeze time, and you don't just blow things up!"

Everyone now looked really confused. Sam took the book back and started flipping through pages again from the entry on Ghosts that he had been showing Piper.

Dean was sputtering a little when he asked, "What do my powers have to do with anything?"

Sam put the book back down, and showed an entry on witches, and common powers. He pointed straight at two paragraphs that were right next to each other. Prue picked it up and started reading furiously as Sam explained.

"We thought it was weird when you were the only one that got a power that wasn't from Melinda Warren, right?" he started. "Me and Phoebe got the 'seeing the future' part, Piper got the power to 'freeze time', and Prue can move things with her mind. It didn't say anything about explosions. Plus, Piper has only been able to freeze whatever is in the same room as her. But what it is, is that you and Piper have the same power."

"Sam-" Piper interjected, trying to get him to slow down, but Sam just interrupted again.

"Lemme finish. Piper's freezing time is _actually_ her slowing down people's molecules to the point where they're inert," Sam explained. There was a prideful grin on his face from the research he had done in such a short time. "Dean, on the other hand, is actually speeding up those molecules so they combust. You both have molecular manipulation; you just do the opposite action."

"So," Dean muttered. "I could eventually figure out how to freeze people like Piper?"

Piper looked a little scared. "And I could eventually start blowing things up?"

Sam shrugged. "Theoretically," he said. "You'd have to be way stronger, I think, to get that far, but it's definitely feasible. You're already getting a pretty good hold on your powers right now…"

Hearing that made Dean's brow wrinkle a little. He hadn't thought he had very good control.

Prue looked up from the book smiling, though, and didn't let him ponder it too far. "I get it," she said, catching onto Sam's research high. "Because ghosts don't have a physical presence, there aren't any molecules for Piper to freeze."

Sam nodded fervently. "Exactly."

"But wait," Mark piped up. He had been mostly quiet as they discussed their own problems, but he now saw an issue with their powers not working on spirits. "If your powers won't work on Yama, how will you keep him from getting me if he turns up? Wouldn't that mean Dean's don't work either?"

The girls looked a little worried about it. Prue wondered to herself if that meant _her_ powers wouldn't affect ghosts either.

Dean just stood up and smiled.

"Same way we made him go away in the alley," he said confidently, before standing up, and grinning sort of amusedly at the girls. "Looks like it's time you guys learned how to use salt."

That only made the girls look at him in confusion.

Sam shook his head before they all headed downstairs.

(-:-)

Phoebe was doubtful of the situation as Frankie led her into the bar. Her boss' so called 'emergency' was actually an attempt to reel in one of the hotel's finer patrons.

"Look," Frankie explained as he pointed at a man sitting at one of the table. "The guy is staying in the grand suite. He could be a sultan, I'm not sure. Anyway, that's why I called. Make this bozo's night, read his future, tell him something good and he'll extend his stay, guaranteed."

Phoebe shook her head a little as she looked back up at him. "Look, like I said, I don't always know when my psychic switch is gonna be in the up position," she warned.

"I have the upmost confidence in you, Phoebe," he assured. "I don't know how you do it, but keep it up and you'll always have work here."

She was happily surprised at that comment, but she was still nervous as she looked back over at the table. The man was already standing up to leave, and when she looked at the table, she saw how he had left a brown, leather wallet on the table. She gasped a little and rushed forward to grab it before he walked away. "Uh-excuse me sir!" she blurted. "You forgot your-"

It was evident by the time she got to his table that he was not going to turn around to talk to her, so she sighed, and looked at the abandoned wallet.

She moved to pick it up, but the second her fingers touched it, a premonition fluttered into her brain. She saw the man that had just walked off walking out of the hotel with his briefcase. As he stepped into the street, he dropped his briefcase, but when he leaned down to grab it, a car horn honked. He looked up in shock just before he was hit by a bright pink Cadillac.

Phoebe shuddered as the premonition faded. When she opened her eyes, she couldn't even see the man anymore. She couldn't stop to warn him that he was going to get hit by a car.

She jumped a little when she heard a voice behind her.

"Are you okay?" It was only Frankie, and she settled a little. "What's the matter?"

Phoebe looked back in the direction of the man she had just seen get hit by a car. "Nothing…" she tried to tell him, clutching the wallet closer to him. "I…nothing."

(-:-)

Sam was stubborn as he stood there arguing with Prue.

"Come on! I can help," he insisted.

"Just because you can help doesn't mean you should," Prue said. "Dean has this covered, you have school in the morning, and you need to go to sleep before that headache gets any worse."

Sam looked surprised that she had said that. Yes, he had had a headache all day, even when doing his research upstairs. But he'd been doing his best to keep it to himself.

After the others had found out about his powers, he had explained about everything that was going on with them: the headaches, the dreams, and the yellow-eyes. In addition to grounding him for lying to them, the Prue had been diligently making sure he got enough sleep. She had even made him take a note to the nurse that said if his headaches got too bad, he could just go in there and take a nap until it was gone.

He thought he had been doing a good job of hiding it.

Prue just looked at him strictly. "Just because you're getting good at hiding it doesn't mean I can't see you wincing, mister," she said firmly. "Now go upstairs, and go to sleep. Got it?"

Sam sighed. "Fine," he grumbled before turning around and going upstairs. "I'm fifteen you know; you don't have to treat me like a toddler."

"If you keep pouting like that people will think otherwise," Prue replied before turning around and walking back to the dining room where Dean was sitting with a row of empty shotgun shells lined up in front of him, as well as a bag of rock salt.

Prue sat down across from him. "So what are we doing?" she asked.

He handed her a screwdriver. "Just do what I do," he said simply. He scooped some of the rock-salt out of the bag, filling the shell with it before tamping it down with the end of another screwdriver. Then he curled the top of the shell back down.

Prue nodded. "Easy enough," she said before reaching out and grabbing a shell of her own. "Is there anything else we need to do to try and keep Yama out?"

"Not much," Dean said, shrugging a little. "Normally, we pour salt lines at all the entrances: windows, doors, sometimes even air-vents. Ghosts can't cross lines of salt."

"You already did that?"

"Actually, Grams did."

Prue looked surprised, Dean shrugged. "I asked Bobby, once, and apparently he, Grams and Dad took like, eighty of those salt blocks you give hamsters, and cut a strip out of all the window-sills and door frames so they could glue them inside. Then they filled the walls with it. Only entrance that isn't blocked is the front door, and I assume that's to let in good ghosts like Mark."

"Did you put salt in front of the door for Yama?" Prue asked.

"Of course I did," Dean snorted. "I know how to handle a ghost, Prue."

Prue made a face at how he snapped at her before rolling her eyes and continuing to load the shells.

Meanwhile in the other room, their ghostly-guest was attempting to turn on the TV. His hand continually passed through the dials, having no effect on the television.

Piper eventually walked in from the hallway, holding a bundle of blankets in her hands a little bit nervously. She might have been a born hostess, but she did not know the protocol for how to treat ghosts in your house. She had wondered if Mark would need blankets, and went and grabbed them without considering that he might not even be able to use them.

He shook his head as she walked up to him, glancing over his shoulder at her briefly. "It's still new to me," he muttered to her. "I keep forgetting I'm…"

He trailed off, not quite ready to say the word _dead_. Piper didn't say anything, and just stood there until he turned around. He looked a little surprised to see the blankets and stood up immediately.

"Are those for me?"

Piper pursed her lips. "Yeah, uh, stupid question. Do ghosts sleep?"

Mark smiled wistfully. "I don't even get cold anymore."

She felt her face heat up, and set the blankets on the couch nearby. "Sorry…"

"It's okay, it's the thought that counts," he said quickly, thankful for the gesture. "I guess it's finally sinking in, what's really happened, what I've lost. No more sucking down a bucket of oysters at the wharf, playing pickup ball with friends, coming home and hearing my mother's voice on the machine…" He trailed off, starting to smile, and laughing before he said, "nagging me cause I haven't married a nice Chinese girl."

Piper smiled gently. "Your mom means a lot to you, huh?"

"She's a great friend," he replied, before shaking his head with a little frown. "Was."

Sullenly, he moved to sit on the couch. "It was just me and her after my father died. Taught me everything I know, especially how to cook. My mom is a great cook."

"My Grams taught me how to cook," Piper confided, remembering herself how often she had helped with dinner. From a really young age, it had been her favorite thing to do in the house, and Grams had given her all the advice she could ever want. "Actually, I loved it so much, I became a chef."

"Really?" Mark asked curiously. "Ever make a Peking duck?"

Piper shook her head. "No. You?"

Mark smiled again. "Piece of cake. Mom told me I could've been a great chef if I hadn't sold out to the Molecular Biology program at Stanford."

"So you can make a Peking Duck and clone DNA?"

Mark laughed at the joke. "The duck's harder."

Piper laughed too before she walked over and flopped into the seat next to him. "Well, I can talk about food all night long," she said, fully intending on keeping him company if he couldn't sleep.

"Yeah?" Mark teased. "Well I can talk about it forever."

And even though it was a little sad that he was right, they both laughed again, and began to talk the night away.

(-:-)

Phoebe nervously paced through the hall, waiting in front of the elevators on the floor where Frankie had told her the man in the lobby was staying. She had learned that his name was Mr. Corey, and the longer she waited, the more nervous she became about the situation. What if she was too late? What if her premonition was wrong, and he'd already been killed while she was trying to warn him?

She looked down the hall to see if he was walking up, and sighed when she didn't see him. It was driving her crazy not knowing if she would be able to help him or not.

She heard footsteps approaching, and practically jumped to look in their direction. She was rewarded when she saw that it was in fact Mr. Corey, walking down the hall and looking harried.

"Oh! Mr. Corey, thank goodness!" she blurted, hurrying over to his side. "Uh, I need to talk to you."

"Do you?" he asked, his face contorting in amusement. "Me? Hey, you're that psychic right?"

Phoebe nodded seriously. "Yeah, right, now look…"

Mr. Corey interrupted, still joking around. "Is that how you know my name?"

"No…" Phoebe began, although that wouldn't really help her credibility, so she backtracked. "Uh, yes. Did you get the note that I left you?"

Now, instead of just amused, Mr. Corey started to look angry. "The note warning me not to go outside?" he gasped. "That was you? Do you get your jollies out of trying to scare people or that how you drum up business?"

Phoebe's eyes widened. "What?" she asked. "You don't understand! I-"

She was cut off as more footsteps approached them, and the woman that Phoebe had told about her weight watchers meeting appeared, immediately looking enraged.

"What is she doing here?!"

Mr. Corey's face was quickly becoming just as upset as hers, and Phoebe quickly made the realization that this was his wife. "She sent the note!" Mr. Corey told his wife.

Phoebe shook her head. "It's not what you think," she insisted. "Look, here, when I picked up your wallet…"

"You stole my wallet?" spat the man.

Phoebe just looked affronted. "I didn't _steal_ your wallet," she insisted.

Mrs. Corey cut her off. "I don't know what you want but just stay away from us, you understand?" With that, the two of them started walking into the elevator.

"But you're going to die!" Phoebe exclaimed, following them halfway into the elevator, and stopping the doors from closing by wedging herself between them. The Corey's rounded on her, looking even more upset. "Uh-that didn't come out right. Look, I can't tell you how I know, but I swear, if you go outside, you're gonna get run over by a pink…" they just kept staring, but that was when Phoebe noticed that the man wasn't carrying his briefcase. He had been carrying it when he had gotten run over in her premonition. He was safe for now! She started to smile. "Wait. You don't have your briefcase! That's good, that's really good. It doesn't happen without your briefcase!"

Mr. Corey just made a face before placing an arm around his wife and speeding up. "Leave us alone, or we'll call hotel security!" he growled, before pressing the close-door button.

Phoebe stayed behind, not catching it with them. Her chest was tight with the disappointment and annoyance that he wouldn't help her, but she was also beginning to think. She now had to find a way to help him, even though he didn't want to be helped.

(-:-)

When Prue walked in to work the next morning, she expected to feel sleepy from helping Dean gear up to protect their ghost all night. She _completely_ expected that her coworkers Laurie and Alan would be laughing at each other through their office doors. She expected Hannah to glare at her snottily as she passed their boss' door.

She did not expect to walk into her office and see a bright vase full of flowers sitting on her desk.

She couldn't help but start to feel sad when she saw them, because there was only one person they could be from. She looked at them considerately before she heard the door close.

She jumped, turning around to see none other than Andy standing behind her.

"Hi."

Prue looked away from him. "You of all people should know that bribery is a crime," she said halfheartedly.

Andy's shoulders slumped. "Apologizing isn't, is it?" he asked. "Look, Prue, I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was married before. I should have. I was going to."

"Really?" asked Prue doubtfully, crossing her arms over her chest. "When? Before or after the doors of our adjoining rooms swung open this weekend?"

Andy considered the comment, but didn't seem _too_ hurt by it. "Okay. I deserved that."

Prue shook her head. "I don't understand how you couldn't find the time to tell me," she said. "Not unless you really were trying to hide it from me."

"Come on, Prue, you know me better than that," he said in his defense.

Prue just glowered a little. "Do I?" she asked. Her chest tightened, because considering it, maybe she did. She was even pretty sure that Andy _had_ intended to tell her. She on the other hand had been deliberately keeping secrets. She was the one that Andy didn't know.

"Prue, it was an innocent dinner, that's all," Andy sighed. "I've got an ex wife and I don't hate her. Is that so horrible?"

"No, no it's not," Prue said, her voice stiff. "But not being honest, not telling me up front is."

"Which I've already apologized for. Why are you trying to turn this into something it's not?"

For a few seconds they just looked at each other, and Andy could read the look on her face. It was one of his talents as a cop after all. "What's really bugging you, Prue?" he asked.

Prue just kept quiet, trying not to think about the real problem. Trying not to give away that she was the one hiding something from him.

Andy saw that too. "Looks like I'm not the only one trying to hide a secret," he said sharply, before walking towards the door and leaving Prue alone with her thoughts.

(-:-)

At the same time in Chinatown, Piper was stepping out of the Impala nervously, with Mark close at her heels. She looked back at Dean, who gave her a thumbs up from where he was sitting in the front of the car. At his side, she knew, was a shotgun loaded with rock salt just in case Yama showed up to try and get Mark. Piper had a bracelet made of iron on as a last resort to try and repel him.

It wasn't the spirit that was bothering her, though.

She looked at Mark as he walked up towards his mother's house. "Are you sure this is going to work?" she asked, a little doubtful.

Mark nodded. "If you speak her language, she'll trust you," he said.

Though she still doubted it a little, Piper rang the doorbell, and took a step back as she waited for Mrs. Chao to open the door. When it popped open, she wasn't surprised to see that the woman looked tired and upset. The police must have already told her.

"Can I help you?" she asked Piper, looking nervously at Dean where he was sitting in the Impala. Piper wasn't entirely surprised. The car, as much as Dean loved it, was a little intimidating.

Mark looked at Piper and started saying the words she needed to repeat. "_Ni hao_."

Piper smiled nervously and repeated it to Mark's mother, who looked a little surprised.

"_Noge meiyung_ Piper," Mark told her. "Wo xuyao he ni tan tan."

_My name is Piper, I need to talk to you._

Piper echoed him, and Mrs. Chao looked both confused and trusting how. "Ni shuo zhongguo?" she asked.

Not knowing how to respond, Piper looked over at Mark quickly. He was thinking hard how to respond. "Berlitz," he eventually gave her. "It's about Mark."

Ms. Chao's eyes went a little wide when Piper repeated his words, and her hand's jumped out to grab Piper's. "Ni zhidao ta zai nali?"

Mark looked surprised, and a little off balance. "She asked me if you know where I am…"

That was not what Piper had expected. She looked at Mrs. Chao in shock. "You-you don't?" she asked.

Mrs. Chao shook her head. "No, and I'm worried sick," she said. "I haven't heard from him since his birthday."

"The police haven't notified her yet?" Mark asked, a look of concern appearing on his face.

"How is that possible?" Piper started to respond to him, only to remember that Mrs. Chao couldn't see him. She'd look like a crazy person to speak to him right now. "I mean…that he hasn't called yet?"

Mrs. Chao shook her head. "I don't know. It's not like him. When did you last see him?"

"Um…well," Piper began, only to trail off, not wanting to be the bearer of this terrible news.

"Piper," Mark urged her. "You have to tell her. You have to tell her where my body is so she can bury me."

"I can't," Piper started, her eyes closing in annoyance with herself as she remembered Mrs. Chao again. "I can't remember the last time actually, but if I see or hear from him, I'll let you know…"

"Thank you," Mrs. Chao said with a fervent nod. "Thank you."

Mark looked upset as Piper turned to walk away from the house. "You can't walk away, Piper," he said. "You have to tell her…" he looked back to see his mother walking away too. "Mom, no!"

He ran after her, trying to catch her before she walked inside, but before he hit the door, a bright light radiated from the lion charm hanging next to the door, the very charm that was supposed to keep him safe. The light forced Mark back, bouncing him onto the ground where Piper gasped to see him fall.

"What happened?" she blurted.

"She's got the house protected against ghosts," Mark said. "All the Chinese fairytales she told me growing up were true." He shook his head, looking miserable. "And I'm going to burn in hell."

(-:-)

Phoebe walked into the kitchen in a bad mood, and she wasn't surprised to see that Dean and Prue were in there already, looking pensive and upset, respectively.

Dean was standing in front of the counters near the fridge, pointedly avoiding his older cousin's ire as he chopped up something green into tiny pieces. Prue was in front of the oven, continuing her cleaning spree from the day before by scrubbing the oven that was built into the island.

"Man trouble?" she questioned, looking at her sister.

Prue looked up at her and glared. "I don't wanna talk about it," she grumbled.

Phoebe pursed her lips, and then caught Dean's eye. His expression told her that it was better for everyone if they just didn't mention the subject in the near future. So, instead, Phoebe looked at the herb on the counter. "I see you found what you were looking for," she grumbled.

Dean's eyebrows raised, and he just kinda shrugged. "Oh yeah," he commented, looking away from it for a second. He didn't seem incredibly enthusiastic about it. "Found it in Chinatown. Mark's mom had this talisman at her house that protected it from ghosts, so I made Mark take me to where I could buy one. Found it completely by accident."

Despite that Phoebe was looking at him while he spoke, she was also clenching her jaw, and was trying not to glower at him. He recoiled from her a little. "What's up with you?"

With a heavy breath, Phoebe walked over to the other side of the kitchen, where she saw that Prue had left more cleaning supplies. She pulled on a pair of yellow gloves and got out her own scrub brush. "I don't wanna talk about it," she grumbled, echoing Prue's earlier comment.

When she moved to join Prue cleaning the island, both of the other Halliwells got a concerned look on their face. "Okay, you'll talk about anything," Prue commented. "What's up?"

Phoebe just shook her head, not looking up as she put on gloves to clean with. "Nothing."

"Phoebe," Prue nudged.

Phoebe looked up at the two of them, and took in their concerned looks before sighing. "Okay, I had a premonition," she explained. "A really bad one too. I saw a guy getting run over by a pink Cadillac."

Prue's eyebrows shot up. Dean snorted a little. "Um…a what?" he asked.

"I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's true," Phoebe sighed. "I saw it and I don't know what to do about it."

"Did you warn him?" Prue asked.

"I tried. He thought I was out of my mind. Thought I was stalking him or something," she sighed, starting to viciously scrub at the counter she was at. "I just feel so useless, you know? I tried to help this guy and I can't do anything to save him. I haven't done anything to help you all out with Mark. These powers were supposed to help people and I can't even do that."

Dean's brow wrinkled. "Hey, don't beat yourself up," he said sternly. "You aren't useless, you just haven't figured it out. And don't worry about Mark, we have that covered."

It took a few seconds for it to hit him that people had been telling _him_ the exact same thing about his powers. The second it did, though, he looked back at the herbs, sort of confused.

"I could have done something, though…"

"It's fine Phoebe," Prue assured her. "Mark's situation is covered, but if you really want to help, Sam and Dean are ready and willing to teach us how to do whatever it is…they do…" Prue trailed off a little, not entirely sure if that was proper grammar, but Phoebe looked at Dean curiously, forgetting about cleaning for a second.

"Seriously?" she asked. "I thought you didn't want us involved…"

Dean looked back at her, and had to shake himself a little. "I didn't," he said. "But the thing is, you're in it now. You know about monsters, and you aren't getting rid of your powers. You might as well be as geared up as possible to try and deal with that."

"So you'll teach me to shoot a gun?" she asked, sounding oddly hopeful.

Dean actually grinned at this. "Absolutely."

Prue rolled his eyes at them, but smiled since the discussion seemed to have perked Phoebe up at least a little. She wasn't feeling quite as useless, at the very least. "So where is he now?" she prompted. Phoebe looked over at her, not catching on immediately since they had veered off of the conversation. "The guy from your premonition."

Phoebe's expression started to fall again. "Hotel Neptune," she said, sort of grimly.

There was a tiny rattling noise as Dean put down his knife, choosing to move away from the herb for a little while. "Really?" he asked. "What were you doing there?"

Phoebe looked back at the counter, and sort of went back to scrubbing. She didn't put much effort into it, though, so both of the others got the impression that she just didn't want to look at them. "I knew you were going to ask that," she muttered. "I…I wanted to get you a really great birthday present, Prue. You know, to make up for all those cards. So I got a job at the hotel as the lounge Psychic."

She looked up nervously, but neither of them seemed to have even cared that she'd gotten a job as a psychic. Prue was still looking at her intensely. "Phoebe, you've gotta save this guy. You shouldn't be letting him out of your sight."

Phoebe perked up a little. "Don't worry," she assured her. "I waited till he was asleep, and then I broke a key off in his door to lock him in. He's safe till morning, at least."

Prue nodded, impressed, and started scrubbing at the stove again. Dean just smiled and moved towards the cabinet to get out a plastic bag.

Phoebe watched them both for a second before it hit her that neither of them had exploded. Neither of them were yelling at her for risk of exposure, or personal gain. Heck, Piper had been more upset with her than they were. Her brow wrinkled a little. "Wait, that's it?" she asked. "You're not gonna get mad at me?"

Dean raised an eyebrow and looked back. "Mad about what?" he asked.

"For getting a job as a psychic," Phoebe elaborated.

Dean seemed to shrug. "Not an _awesome_ idea," he admitted, "but it's not like anyone believes you're really a psychic. Definitely not a witch."

Prue actually looked a little amused. "You were trying to do something good," she assured her sister. "And now you're going to get to do something wonderful. I couldn't ask for a better birthday present than that."

Phoebe started to smile, and started to go back to cleaning. But, then they heard Sam yell from the living room.

"Guys! Guys! Come see this!"

Everyone raised an eyebrow, and walked into the other room where Sam was watching the news. Piper and Mark were already there, both looking dourly at the television.

"They found my body," Mark said.

No one was really surprised, but they all got quiet as the news reporter spoke.

"Although police report that the body was burned beyond recognition, personal effects at the scene preliminarily identify him as Tony Wong, head of the Chinatown Triad."

Before the word _Wong_ was entirely out of her mouth, everyone in the room was already tensing. They showed a picture on the screen of the so called Triad boss, and Mark gaped.

"That can't be," he growled. "That's the guy that killed me!"

"This isn't right," Dean muttered, standing up and starting to pace a little. "Why would they think..."

Phoebe had moved to turn up the volume on the TV, but when she touched the remote, she froze a little, and an image swarmed into her head of Wong loading a gun. Behind him was a window with Chinese symbols painted on. Everyone looked at her, but she kept her eyes closed to try and focus on those symbols.

"Wait, I can see him," she told them. "Wong is still alive."

Mark grumbled. "Of course he's still alive, that's me they found."

Prue ignored him, and looked at her sister pointedly. "Can you see where he is now?"

"I see a sign," Phoebe said. "Quick get me a pen."

Piper moved to get one, but Sam already had one on him and handed it over wordlessly. Phoebe started to scribble on her hand while Dean looked at Mark.

"This Wong guy, why did he kill you?" he asked.

Mark shrugged. "I have no idea. I've never even met him before."

"You do look a little like him, though," Piper chimed in. "Maybe he used you to fake his death."

Phoebe looked up from her writing and held up her hand so that they could see. "What does that mean?" she asked Mark.

"Warhai Imports," answered Mark, tilting his head a little. "It's a warehouse over in Chinatown."

(-:-)

Piper's heart was racing as she and Mark slipped down a street in Chinatown, tensely clutching a newspaper in her hand. Up ahead, she could see the Warhai Imports building, and she was actually beginning to think she was a little bit crazy for doing this. She hadn't told any of the others, knowing that they would react badly or try to go with her.

She _knew_ Mark thought she was crazy, as he had been trying to talk her out of it for the entire drive over. "I don't know about this Piper, I think it's too dangerous."

"It's your only chance," Piper said firmly, continuing to walk, though she kept her voice low. No one was over here, but she still didn't want to risk anyone thinking she was crazy for talking to herself.

"Piper, listen to me!" insisted Mark . "You don't wanna go up there! Those men pulled the trigger on me without even thinking. They'll kill you!"

Piper just looked at him for a second, but she didn't think about what he was saying too hard. She knew that they would try to kill her, she knew it was dangerous. But still, this was the only thing she could think of to try and get the police to investigate further.

She tried to console him as they walked through the door. "I can freeze things, remember?"

"But there's three thugs in there!"

Piper nodded. "Keep talkin."

"With guns."

"Even better."

Mark made a face, and was about to ask a question when he noticed a charm like his mother's hanging next to the door at the top of the stairs. "Wait, wait, wait. They've got an amulet on the door. I can't go in."

Piper looked at him questioningly for a second, before pulling the amulet off of its hook and tossed it on the ground.

Mark looked a little embarrassed.

"Never mind," he said before they walked up to a flight of stairs. Piper paused for a second, and he asked, "Scared?"

"Terrified," she answered truthfully, but adding, "That's a good thing," to try and remind herself to use her powers.

She quickly got up the stairs, and once she reached the door at the top, rushed through.

There were in fact three men inside, and all of them jumped to their feet when she burst in. Before they could draw any weapons, her hands shot out, and she froze everyone.

With everyone frozen still, she took a moment to breath. "Okay, phew…" she grumbled, looking at the goon-squad for a few seconds before identifying Tony Chang. "We gotta hurry…"

She took a few steps forward and slipped the newspaper she had carried with her into his hands. The front cover was a picture of Tony, and the headline announced his death. She quickly took a picture of him holding it.

Almost immediately afterwards, though, everyone started to move again. She nearly screamed.

"Run!" Mark yelled at her, and she did not need telling twice. They practically sprinted down the stairs and out of the building, all too aware of the gangsters on Piper's heels. Neither of them stopped until they had reached Piper's jeep, which was sitting right down the street.

They didn't look back when they heard gunshots, or people screaming. Piper just stepped on the gas and zoomed off.

Their next stop was the police station, where Piper went in alone to slip Tony's picture into Andy's mailbox.

Mark waited by the car as she went inside, and though his nervousness had ebbed out of him since they had left the warehouse, he was beginning to feel a little doubtful of what might happen from here. Sure, the Halliwells were being great helping him, but even if the police recognized that Tony wasn't dead, that still didn't mean that they'd realize it was his body. And if they did, what would happen if he still didn't pass on once he was buried?

Piper eventually came back out of the police station looking relieved. "Okay, all set," she announced once she made it back to the car. "I snuck the photograph into Andy's inner office mail."

In his distress, all Mark could find to say was, "My afterlife is in the hands of a cop named Andy…"

She sighed a little, and looked at him chastizingly. "He's an inspector, and he's very good, Mark," she assured him. "After he sees Wong is alive, he'll know exactly what to do."

"Bust Wong, maybe, but that doesn't help me. They won't have any way of identifying the body as mine."

"I put your name in with the picture. Andy will get dental records or something and match it up. All we have to do," she continued, "is keep Yama away from you until then.

He smiled at her. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything. I made you a promise didn't I?" She didn't look away from him, and kept talking as she opened the car door for him, smiling back, assuring. "As much as I like you, I have no intention of joining you."

Mark was about to comment, but someone else spoke before he could.

"Talking to yourself, huh?"

Piper spun on her heel, and nearly had a heart attack before she realized that it was Andy talking to her. She slammed the car door shut without a second thought.

"Andy, hi," She exclaimed. "Yeah, um, it's an old habit, I do it all the time."

Andy smiled, making it obvious that he was messing around with her for the fun of it. "My mom used to call it interesting conversations with an interesting person."

"Yeah?" Piper questioned, her voice shaking a little. "Interesting."

Mark nearly snorted. "Very."

Andy raised an eyebrow. "Not that it's not a pleasure, but what are you doing here?"

Piper shrugged a little. "Oh, nothing," she said casually. "You know, just passing by."

The Inspector didn't seem to buy it, and looked at the pavement almost nervously. "Did Prue tell you what's going on?"

Piper winced a little. "No," she started, before sighing. "Well, yeah, I mean, sort of. Kind of screwed up, huh?"

"Any idea what I should do?"

The gears clicked in Mark's brain. "Oh, _that_ Andy."

"Yeah," Piper answered him, before catching her mistake and backtracking to convince Andy. "I mean…_yeah_, hmm. Just give her some space, let her work it through."

Andy nodded, as if he had sort of realized that himself, but felt weird not actively seeking her forgiveness. "Yeah, okay…" he muttered, before leaning forwards and giving her a hug. "Thanks. Take care."

Piper smiled as he hugged her, and patted him lightly on the back. "Yeah, you too," she said sincerely before watching him walk off.

Mark smiled at her, partly amused at how nervous she had acted, and partly touched at how sincerely she had wanted to help him, even through those nerves.

When she turned back to him and saw his smile, she raised an eyebrow. "What?"

He shook his head a little before saying, "You're a really sweet person, you know that?" Piper looked like she would laugh it off, so he added, "No, I mean that. I wanna take you somewhere. There's something I wanna do for you…" And with that, he slid into the passenger's seat without Piper opening the door.

(-:-)

Phoebe waited by the elevators, determined to help Mr. Corey whether he believed her or not. She had gotten a few strange looks from Frankie, who wasn't supposed to be working, but other than that, there were thus far no hindrances to her helping him.

The next elevator dinged to declare its arrival, and she desperately looked over to see that Mr. Corey was walking out of one.

"Oh! Mr. Corey!" she exclaimed immediately rushing over to him.

He glared when he saw her. "Stay away.

She pressed on. "Please, you have to believe me."

He kept glaring as he stormed towards the main doors. "You locked me in my room didn't you?" he growled.

"Just for your protection," Phoebe insisted.

Mr. Corey nearly groaned. "What do you want?" he blurted. "Money? Is that what this is? A shakedown?"

"No!" Phoebe declared sharply. "I'm trying to save your life for god's sake! Listen to me."

He shook his head and turned around as he got close to the doors. "You're crazy."

"If you walk out that door you're a dead man!" she insisted.

Mr. Corey looked at the door man, and asked to call security before walking through the doors.

"Mr. Corey, don't do it!" she yelled after him, before starting to chase him again. By the time she made it out the doors, he was standing in the middle of the road trying to pick up his briefcase as a pink Cadillac sped towards him.

"Watch out!" she shouted, before running at him and barely managing to tackle him out of the way.

Once the car was gone, she started to stagger back to her feet. Mr. Corey was wide eyed at her side, looking like he might be sick. He looked at her in disbelief.

"That'll be twenty dollars. Tip not included," she said sharply before walking away, her head spinning with adrenaline and happiness that she had pulled it off.

(-:-)

When Mark said that he had wanted to take Piper somewhere, she had assumed that he meant take her into town and show her a really nice place to eat or something. She hadn't really expected for him to take her to a lovely apartment complex, or to show her into a very neat apartment.

"This is your place?" she asked curiously, looking around. "It's beautiful."

Mark smiled as he watched her mill around. "Thanks."

She picked up a book off of his table and smiled. "Camus," she chuckled. "I'm impressed."

"I wish I had a chance to finish it," Mark replied in similar amusement, before shrugging with a consideration. "Of course, I guess I can say that about almost everything, I guess."

Piper flipped the book oven to the page he had left it on, and began reciting. "I love this world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour where one is weary of prisons, and all one craves for is a warm face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart."

"I like that part."

"Me too."

As she put down the book, she looked back at Mark, who said, "Listen, if your cop friend comes through, maybe I'll get a chance to ask Camus himself how it turns out." He waved her away from the table and the book. "I want you to reach for something."

He lead her over to a tall shelf, and pointed at an ornamental box at the top. Piper quickly went and pulled it down, before looking at him in question.

Mark moved to sit on the sofa. "Open it," he told her, while patting the seat next to him.

She took a seat and she pulled open the box, surprised to see several letters written in Chinese, with some papers in English at the very bottom. "What are they?" she asked.

"My grandfather's recipes," he answered. "My dad translated them when I was born. They've been serving these in my family's restaurant for decades. They're yours."

Piper's eyes went wide, and she looked up at him in shock. "But they belong in your family."

He shook his head. "I want you to have them," he insisted. "For everything you've done for me. I just ask one favor: use them for your sister's surprise birthday party."

Piper smiled a little, but also let out a little sigh. "Prue doesn't want a party."

"Birthdays are important. I know. I walked out of my last one and it never occurred to me that I wouldn't get another. She may not know it, but she needs to celebrate her birthday, we all do…Don't take it for granted."

Piper swallowed hard at his words, and trembled a little as he turned towards her. She wanted to tell him _Of Course_ she would, but she couldn't force it out of her lips when she considered how much she had begun to like Mark since they had met. Mark would never get to have another birthday, would never be able to speak to his mom again, would never grow old, or get married and have kids.

Piper couldn't help but wonder if maybe, in another circumstance, she would've been the one to marry him and have his kids.

By the look on Mark's face he was wondering the same thing.

(-:-)

The TV cast flashes of light across Prue's ceiling as she flicked through the channels. Even though it had been more than a day since she had last seen Andy, she still felt almost sick thinking about the entire situation. She knew she was partly in the right after all: he shouldn't have kept his ex-wife from her. He had lied.

But now she was pretty sure she was overreacting. Maybe it had just never come up, or maybe he was just waiting to introduce her as a friend, seeing as they were on really friendly terms.

It also stood that he had been right when he had gone to see her at Buckland's. She was keeping secrets just like he was, and hers was far bigger, and far more important. She didn't have the right to react that way because he didn't tell her about one thing. She was also starting to wonder that if keeping a secret this big would make it even harder to have a real relationship.

The door cracked open, and she wasn't surprised to hear Phoebe's voice as her sister settled into a chair nearby. "Prue, what are you doing?"

"Just flicking through the channels…"

Phoebe's brow crinkled a little. "You don't flick," she grumbled. "You never flick."

"Well, I flick now," Prue said, looking over at Phoebe to make a retort of some kind, but surprised to see that Phoebe didn't look too hot. The legs of her jeans were dirty like she had slid across pavement, and there was a slight bruise on her cheek. She raised an eyebrow. "Are you okay? You look…"

Phoebe smiled, and cut her off. "Awful? I know. I feel fine."

"Did you warn that guy?"

The smile on Phoebe's face on widened. "I did better than that," she said. "I saved that guy. And it was great, too. I knew doing it would be good for him, but I had no idea what a rush it would be for me. I felt so good, and not just about myself, but about everything. That even in my own little way, I could make a difference." Phoebe laughed a little. "Can you believe it's me saying this?"

Prue laughed a little too. "What more can I say? It's been a week of surprises."

"Yeah, speaking of surprises: what are you gonna do about Andy?"

The smile that had developed fell off of Prue's face. "I don't know," she admitted. "Andy kept something from me, but the truth is that I keep something from him every day. And it's not like I'll ever be able to tell him about our secret, so what's the point?"

Phoebe, while she still looked a little concerned, smiled still. "We're the Charmed Ones, Prue," she answered sagely. "Not the doomed ones. We have lives just like everyone else. Call him, go see him, do something. Give to get, that's the secret of life. Not our powers…"

(-:-)

Piper looked shyly at Mark as they both walked back into the manor. They had both been quiet since they had left Mark's apartment, and Mark had begun to look more and more regretful about his situation.

"You okay?" she asked as she closed the door.

"I was just thinking," he said quietly. "Walking under the stars, what's really up there? What's waiting for me?"

Piper looked him in the eye and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe you can give me a hint when you get there."

Mark looked at her and smiled wistfully. "I don't want this night to ever end," he admitted. "I'm not ready to say goodbye, Piper."

Piper looked at him sadly before she took a step forwards, moving to touch him before remembering that she couldn't. Even so, she kept her hand almost near his face, imagining that she could feel his skin. She didn't want this to end either.

"Close your eyes," she said to him, her voice shaking, and her body trembling as her eyes welled with tears. "Pretend you can feel my hand on your skin, that my touch gives you comfort."

Mark opened his eyes, and was about to say something, but Piper cut him off.

"Just close your eyes."

He did, and so did Piper before she moved forwards, as if she were going to kiss him. She stopped just millimeters away from his mouth, not wanting to flat out pass through him.

After a few moments, he pulled back and shook his head. "Where were you my whole life?" he asked.

Piper looked like she might answer, and smiled a little, but before she could, the door flew open. Piper shrieked as two men burst through the door and grabbed her.

"No!" Mark shouted as they carried her out the door. "Piper! Someone help!"

By the time Dean came running up from the basement, Piper had already been stashed in the goons' car.

"What happened?!" Dean blurted at Mark just as Phoebe, Prue and Sam appeared on the stairwell.

"They took her," Mark explained desperately. "Wong's men took Piper!"

"Do you know where they took her?" Prue blurted, but Mark just shook his head. "I'm calling nine-one-one…"

She started to rush for the phone, but Phoebe caught her hand. "No, do it from the car, we have to go look for her!"

No one argued and immediately ran for the door.

(-:-)

Piper could feel nerves dancing through her chest. Her stomach was a knot of butterflies, her throat was tight with worry. It would have been the perfect time for her to use her powers if she wasn't completely bound to a chair, with her hands tied uselessly behind her.

It had been several hours she had been kidnapped, and standing around her now were Tony Wong and his goons. Wong himself was sitting on a desk a few feet away from her, loading bullets into a gun. His men were just standing around threateningly.

"The first time I saw you, I thought you were a ghost," Tony said, hardly looking up at her.

Piper scowled, and fought a little with her bonds. If only she had a knife. Actually, seeing as this was her life now, carrying one from now on might not be a bad idea.

"These ropes are really tight," she commented, visibly fighting with the ropes. No one moved to help her though. Yep, she was definitely getting a knife. And probably going to ask Dean and Sam if they knew anything about getting out of rope binding.

She let out a huff, knowing that her struggles were getting her nowhere. Instead she glanced at Tony, and asked, "Why did you kill Mark?"

This got their attention. Wong looked at her, and stood up. "I needed his identity," he said darkly, walking towards her. Without warning, he grabbed a fist full of her hair, and she gasped. "Who else knows I'm alive?" he demanded. "I had plans! I had a boat ready to take me to Hong Kong. I had a whole new life and you screwed it all up!"

There was suddenly a pounding noise downstairs, and Piper could hear Mark yelling. She was sure her family was there to rescue her. There was a _thump_ kind of noise, like someone was hitting a wall.

Wong heard it too, and he suddenly went on edge. He used his gun to point at the door. "I'll take her," he said. "You shoot anyone that comes through that door." As the others walked off, Mark moved behind Piper. He untied her hands from the chair, and she immediately started to pull at the remaining restraints.

The door opened suddenly, with Prue leading the charge upstairs. Dean was close behind with a hand gun.

The second they were in view, the henchmen raised their guns, aiming to kill, but Prue waved her hand, knocking them to the ground and the guns out of their hands.

Wong gaped as he raised his gun, not sure what he was dealing with and shooting before asking questions. Dean started aiming his gun just a little too late, and at about the same time Piper managed to get her hands free.

She snapped them out frantically, and Wong froze.

Prue just stared at the bullet stuck in midair. Dean just blinked and nodded, as if this was an acceptable turn of events. He crossed the room and started working at the bindings still around Piper's ankles. "Nice timing," he said.

Prue shook her head and moved to help him as Mark finally walked in from where he had been waiting on the stairs.

He looked darkly at Wong. "How long does this last again?" he asked.

"Not very…" Piper said. Prue untied the last of the ropes, allowing her to stand right before they heard a bang.

Their eyes all snapped around to where Wong was now frantically looking for his target. The bullet had moved out of mid-air and hit a statue in the corner. When he finally turned to see them, Dean had his gun pointed right at his chest, and he looked absolutely terrified.

Police sirens started going off outside.

"Who are you people?" he stammered, struggling to raise his gun again. Prue waved her arm and knocked him down the stairs with her powers before he could try to hurt them again.

The sirens got louder and louder, and Piper onto to the balcony. The building, conveniently, was connected to several others by said balcony, and as soon as they were far away from the warehouse they looked back at where the police were surrounding the building. Wong had run through the doors of the warehouse and was pointing his gun at the police around him.

A policeman's shouted, "Police! Freeze!"

With no other options, though, Wong shot.

Immediately, at least three other policemen fired, hitting Wong straight on. He immediately crumpled to the ground.

Piper shuddered. Dean and Prue just looked on disappointedly. "I've never seen anyone killed before…" Piper muttered.

"Jeremy," Prue reminded her.

And Dean added, "Javna."

"I meant human," Piper said, narrowing her eyes as she turned to them and they started to walk away. "Where are Phoebe and Sam?"

"Waiting in the car," Dean said as they approached the steps that put them in the alleyway where the impala was parked, and where Sam and Phoebe were bouncing on their heels with worry. Dean had said Phoebe couldn't go because she couldn't defend herself. Prue had said Sam couldn't go because it was a mob warehouse for God's sake and he was fifteen. Neither had been very happy about it, but they had done as they were told.

"What happened?!" Sam barked at them as they came down the steps gradually.

"We'll tell you in the car," Prue sighed. "In the mean time, we need to go before the police see us."

Phoebe opened her mouth to ask something else right before there was the sound of footsteps, and Tony Wong ran into their alleyway, wide-eyed with shock. Those who had just saw him killed looked at him in confusion.

Wong froze in his tracks when he saw Mark.

"Wong," Mark growled, realizing that they were both ghosts.

Wong was visibly shaking when he replied. "But you're dead…"

"Yeah," Mark affirmed bitterly. "So are you."

The two men glared at each other, and over Wong's shoulder, Piper spotted a man on horseback.

Yama.

"Mark, I think you should get outta here…" she breathed.

Mark looked up, but when he saw Yama, he didn't run. Instead, he moved forward and grabbed Tony by the collar. Tony, still in a state of shock, moved as he was directed.

"Make a wish, you bastard," Mark growled before shoving Tony in Yama's direction.

Immediately, Yama lowered his spear, and Tony's soul was drawn into it like an injection needle. They never even heard him scream.

Mark was eerily calm when he looked back to Yama, even though the Guardian was slowly trotting towards him.

Before he got too close, though, Phoebe and Sam stood in front of the others. Phoebe had a shotgun in her hand, and Sam was holding what looked to be an iron plated baseball bat. Prue and Dean hadn't carried ghostly weapons for the sake of speed, but they hadn't left the others unprepared.

Piper slowly walked in front of them, careful to stay out of Phoebe's firing range.

"Oh no you don't," she said firmly. "He is a good man. He doesn't belong with you, and we will not let you take him."

They stared him down for a few moments, and Yama understood he wasn't getting through. Without so much as a nod, he vanished.

(-:-)

Two days later, the San Francisco sky was overcast, perfect for the mood that the entire house found themselves in as they dressed in black and got ready to leave for Mark's funeral.

Dean, of course, was the first one done. He only owned one outfit fit for a funeral after all, and the girls all seemed to think like they needed to be dressed perfectly. Prue and Phoebe did, at least. Dean was pretty sure that Piper was in her room crying, and would need an extra twenty minutes to redo her make up because of it.

He felt sorry for her and Mark both. Even he could see how they had clicked when they met. They would never know what could have happened if they had met a few days before he had died.

The last day and a half had been spent keeping Mark and Piper away from each other so that it wouldn't be even worse. Even now, Sam was keeping Mark busy in the kitchen by making him explain as many Chinese myths he could remember, and scribbling them down for posterity.

Dean had something else to think about, though: He had gotten through his first hunt since he had gotten his powers, and everything had turned out fine.

He hadn't blown anything up or nearly killed anyone, _and_ he and Prue had saved Piper from a mobster. What he thought was even more important, though, was that his new powers had helped them save a man that, left as a ghost, would become a vengeful spirit. They were saving not only Mark, but a dozen innocent people that he would be hurt one day if he was just left as a ghost.

So, with the case closed, and no one hurt in the crossfire, Dean was starting to wonder about the decision he had made to bind his powers.

As he stood up in the attic with Bobby's spell book, and almost all of the ingredients laid out in front of him, he started to feel reluctant to go ahead and start mixing them. Blowing things up sucked, but they had helped to take out Jeremy and Tina when they were about to slaughter his family. He had gotten a hold of that over the past month, too, and had not blown anything up by accident in what felt like forever. Plus, what if seeing ghosts before they became vengeful spirits was helpful?

Dean pursed his lips and took a step back from the table, taking the book with him, and glancing at the potion instructions for a little while. Maybe he had jumped the gun, he thought. Maybe his powers weren't as bad as he thought.

He closed the book, making his decision just as the door opened. Prue peeked a head in and looked at him confusedly. "What are you doing up here?"

He blinked, once, then twice, trying to come up with an answer. Then it came to him, and he gave her a weak smile. "Wrapping your birthday present?"

Prue looked doubtful as she walked into the room, and he held out the spell book for her to see. "Here," he said.

Prue raised an eyebrow, flipping through it. She seemed surprised to find it was a spell book.

Dean grinned at her. "See. I told the others that my gifts don't always suck," he said, before starting to the door. "Now come on, we've got a funeral to get to, don't we?"

Prue let her eyes follow him out the door, still surprised, and suspicious about the potion ingredients on the table. She didn't know what he had been planning to do, but part of her felt like it was a better present that he hadn't done whatever it was in the end. She put the book down on the table, choosing to ask about it later as she followed him downstairs, and they all braced themselves for Mark's funeral.

(-:-)

It was a simple, hastily put together service, all in all. There were several friends of Mark's that stood up and spoke about him. There were lawn chairs spread out in front of a podium, and a small pillar upon which an urn was rested. Mark's mother sat in the front row, silently crying as she listened to the eulogy.

The Halliwell-Winchesters had chosen to stand off to the side, not intruding on the space of those who knew Mark best, but Mark wandered through the crowd. He said his goodbyes to his friends, despite the fact that they couldn't hear him, saving his mother for last. They could see how sad he was to have to leave her, but he still looked grateful for everything she had done for him.

After that, he walked back over to the Halliwells. He just kind of smiled at them, avoiding Piper's gaze. Instead he spoke to Prue. "Take it from me," he warned. "Don't miss your birthday. Not any of them. They're precious."

Prue smiled. "I won't," she assured him.

With nothing to say to the others, he couldn't stop himself to moving over towards Piper. She let a tear roll down her face as he said, "I wish…"

She shook her head. "I know," she said, her voice trembling. "Me too."

Mark pursed his lips a little, and held up a hand as if he were going to touch her face. Piper relaxed, trying to feel it. "I'm gonna miss you Piper."

Sam looked away, not wanting to intrude on the moment. He managed to look right at a man as he materialized a few feet away. "Who's that?" he asked.

Mark turned around and smiled. "My dad," he said. "I guess this really is goodbye." He looked back at all of them for a second, silently saying farewell. Piper smiled through her tears, and Dean and Phoebe waved before he turned around and walked away. The second he reached his father, they embraced and disappeared.

Dean smiled. "Glad that worked," he said cheerily. "I would've hated having to salt and burn him."

Prue popped him in the chest, but Piper let out a tiny laugh before she choked on her tears. Phoebe put an arm around her shoulders comfortingly. "Hey, it's gonna be okay. He's better off over there than he is here, anyway."

"I know," Piper said, still crying, before letting out another sad laugh. "Leave it to me to fall for a dead guy…"

The other smiled, and they all huddled in closer. Sam put a hand on her shoulder. "I say it's an improvement. He wasn't a warlock or a demon at least."

Piper genuinely smiled at that, and she started to feel better as they walked towards the car.

The drive back to the house was happier than a lot of car rides would have been after a funeral. Dean and Phoebe spent the entire ride telling corny jokes, making Piper smile, and distracting Prue from whatever turmoil she had been avoiding with Andy. It was pretty much dark when they reached the house, and Prue spoke up once they stepped onto the front porch.

"You know what, I changed my mind. Maybe I should have a party after all."

Piper grinned a little as she unlocked the door. Dean and Sam shared a look.

Phoebe nearly snorted. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah," Prue said, her voice a little defensive as they all walked into the dark house. "Why not? Mark is right…"

Piper led them all inside, and watched her steps as she fumbled for a light switch. "Well, Prue, I'm glad you said that, because…" she trailed off before flipping the switch. As the living room lit up, more than a dozen people jumped up and smiled, all of them shouting "SURPRISE".

Prue staggered a little, but smiled as she saw all of her friends, and even her new colleagues from the auction house milling around. She looked at her family members with a knowing look.

Piper just kept grinning as her ability as a hostess drowned out the grief she was still stumbling out of. "Did I getcha?" she teased. "I gotcha."

"Yeah, you got me," Prue said, smiling and giving her sister a hug. Sam was next, saying Happy Birthday to her before running upstairs, not wanting to mingle with the adults too much. Dean followed up, unable to avoid the hug. He and Piper then walked off to start getting the buffet together.

Phoebe was last, walking up to Prue with a present she had grabbed off of the front table. She looked incredibly proud of herself, and so happy that her sister was happy with the party. "And I got you an actual present too," she said excitedly. "It's paid for, and I hope you like it."

Prue smiled, and moved to hug her. "I'm speechless," she said brightly. When they pulled away, Phoebe's eyes drifted across the room, and she waved when she saw Andy.

Prue's smile only brightened to see him standing there, and she couldn't wait to tell him that she had made her decision about their spa weekend.


End file.
